What is agrobiodiversity and how do international/national laws impact on it's implementation? Juliana Santili explains.

1. Agrobiodiversity,
farmers´rights and
agroforestry
Juliana Santilli
World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF),
Nairobi- Kenya
1

2. Agrobiodiversity: diversity of
species, varieties, agroecosystems..
2

3. Associated sociocultural diversity
4th level of agrobiodiversity: socioeconomic and
cultural systems that create, maintain and enrich
agrobiodiversity
Role of traditional/local farmers in the domestication
of plants, trees and landscapes, conservation and
sustainable use of agrobiodiversity.
The concept of agrobiodiversity reflects the dynamic
relationship between human societies, cultivated
plants and the environments where they interact.
3

4. Associated sociocultural diversity
Domesticated and/or cultivated plants are:
“cultural artifacts”(Sauer, 1986)
“biological objects in their nature, but cultural
objects in their essence” (Emperaire, 2008)
Cultural and social processes are essential to promote
and enrich agrobiodiversity

5.  Agrobiodiversity and food security, nutrition,
health, social equity and justice, environmental
sustainability and climate change adaptation
 MDGs: 1- eradicate extremely poverty and hunger,
and 7- ensure environmental sustainability
5

6. Agrobiodiversity and Law
Seed Laws:
Industrial and highly-productive farming systems
Scientist/breeder as the only “innovator” X farmers merely
“users” of innovation
Privilege “formal” seed systems X “informal”/local seed
systems (linear approach)

7. Agrobiodiversity and Law
Seed Laws:
Impose strict rules on seeds’ production, distribution and sales,
that local systems cannot comply with
Reduce legal space for traditional/local farming systems (local
seeds), that maintain agrobiodiversity
In many cases, they make informal seed exchange, as well as the
sales of farm-saved seeds, illegal

8. Agrobiodiversity and Law
Seed Laws:
Local seed systems maintain genetic diversity in farmers’
fields, as well as plant varieties adapted to specific local and
environmental conditions
For low income farmers, eliminating the costs of commercial
seeds is also important
Local systems are widely predominant in developing
countries, where most farmers reproduce their own seeds (of
both local and commercial varieties).

9. Agrobiodiversity and Law
Seed Laws:
Brazilian Seed Law:
Exempts from registry “local, traditional and creole seeds”:
developed, adapted or produced by small-scale (family)
farmers, agrarian-reform settlers and Indigenous farmers
(They cannot meet the homogeneity and stability criteria) But
who decides which seeds are local/traditional/creole? They
cannot be “substantially similar to commercial seeds”

10. Agrobiodiversity and Law
Intellectual property rights over plant varieties: WTO TRIPS
Agreement- Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property
Rights
Article 27.3(b): Members shall provide for the protection of plant
varieties either by patents or by an efficient sui generis
system, or by any combination thereof.
Sui generis system: UPOV: Plant Breeder´s Rights:
- breeder´s exemption: IP-protected varieties can be used as
source of variation for the development of a new variety;
- farmers´rights to save, exchange and sell farm-saved seed
(restricted by subsequent Acts of the UPOV Convention)

11. Agrobiodiversity and Law
Intellectual property rights over plant varieties:
1) Can create obstacles for the accessibility to knowledge and
technologies by resource-poor farmers in developing countries
Seeds for most crops are accessed mostly through informal
networks.
Some IPRs systems (patents) make reuse of seed illegal, and
others (PBRs under UPOV Act 1991) do not allow the
exchange and sale of farm-saved seed.

12. Agrobiodiversity and Law
Intellectual property rights over plant varieties:
2) May have a strong impact on the public agricultural
research system:
The idea that IP can solve the funding problems of public
research may orient the focus of public agricultural research
institutions towards more commercial crops and farmers
IP policies must consider the need to produce public goods and
address the technology needs of resource-poor famers
(Genugten et al, 2011)

13. Agrobiodiversity and Law
Intellectual property rights over plant varieties:
New legal systems, alternative to conventional IPRs, to
encourage collaborative production (open source biology,
protected commons etc): balance between monopolies
promoted by IPRs and the protection of common goods
What defines a good as a common is not the intrinsic
possibility (resulting from ist own nature) of being shared, but
the social and legal regime to which it is subjected
Some goods are intrinsically non competitive (their use by one
person does not prevent another person from using them)
Sharing, rather than exclusion

14. Agrobiodiversity, agroforestry amd
Law
Agroforestry and the UN environmental conventions:
Convention on Biological Diversity
Convention on Climate Change
Convention to Combat Desertification
+
FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food
and Agriculture
UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural
Heritage

15. Agrobiodiversity and Law
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Nagoya
Protocol:
National sovereignty over genetic resources; access and
benefit-sharing on a bilateral basis, through contracts between
“users” and “providers”

16. Agrobiodiversity and Law
International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food
and Agriculture: multilateral ABS system
The only “global commons” regime:
- covers only Annex I crops, for FA, conserved ex situ and in
the public domain;
- conflicts in the interpretation of art.12.3.d, which forbids
claims of IPRs over GR “in the form received from the
multilateral system”

17. Agrobiodiversity and Law
International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food
and Agriculture: conservation and sustainable use of PGR.
Promote and support farmers’ and local communities efforts to
manage and conserve on-farm their PGR;
Promote in situ conservation of wild crop relatives, including in
protected areas, by supporting, inter alia, the efforts of
indigenous and local communities;
Broaden the genetic base of crops and increase the range of genetic
diversity available to farmers;
17

18. Agrobiodiversity and Law
International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food
and Agriculture: conservation and sustainable use of PGR.
Promote the development and maintenance of diverse farming
systems that enhance the sustainable use of agricultural
biodiversity and other natural resources;
Strengthen research which enhances and conserves biological
diversity by maximizing intra and inter-specific variation, for the
benefit of farmers, especially those who generate and use their
own varieties and apply ecological principles;

19. Agrobiodiversity and Law
International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food
and Agriculture:
 First international legally-binding instrument:
Recognizes farmers’ rights;
Recognizes the important role played by farmers in
conservation and sustainable use of PGRFA;
All parties are obliged to adopt policies aimed at promoting in
situ/on farm conservation of PGRFA;

20. Farmers’ rights to:
 Protection of traditional Save, use, exchange and sell
knowledge
farm-saved seeds (subject to
national laws)
 Participate in benefit-
sharing arising from the
utilization of plant genetic X
resources
 Participate in decision- Seed Laws and IPRs over
making on matters related to plant varieties
 conservation and sustainable
use of plant genetic
resources
20

21.  Farmers’rights must be implemented by each country, at the
local level, and according to national laws.
21

22. Farmers’ rights: how to implement
 Two possible approaches: (Andersen, 2009)
 1) “Ownership approach”: based on access and benefit-
sharing laws, enacted according to CBD principles:
 “prior informed consent” + “fair and equitable benefit-sharing”
 (for genetic resources and traditional knowledge)
22

23. Farmers’ rights: how to implement
 2) “Stewardship” approach:
 Ensure access to and the exchange of genetic material and
traditional knowledge among farmers, so that they can continue
to manage and benefit from the resources of agrobiodiversity,
according to their social networks and local rules:
 Recognition of legal pluralism/diversity (expression of
cultural diversity), and the legitimacy of local rules, customs
and traditions regarding the use and exchange of genetic
resources and associated knowledge (X legal monism)
 Recognition of collective rights
23

24. Farmers’ rights: how to implement
(“stewardship” approach)
 Collective benefit-sharing, such as:
 Public policies aimed at valuing and strenghtening
local/traditional farming systems;
 Payment for environmental services (including those provided
by agroforestry systems, such as biodiversity conservation,
improved soil fertility, carbon sequestration and on-farm
adaptation, watershed protection etc);
 Creation of community/local seed banks and fairs;
24

25. Farmers’ rights: how to implement
(“stewardship” approach)
 Participatory plant breeding programs, developed through
partnerships between farmers and scientists;
 Access of local/agrobiodiversity products (including forest
products) to the market under special conditions and
incentives;
 Food security programs that consider the diversity of healthy
foods that forests provide, and their cultural value and
importance for local food systems;
Geographical Indications for agricultural systems as a whole
(not for isolated products): promoting a “basket of territorial
products and services” (Pequeur, 2006);

26. Farmers’ rights: how to implement
(“stewardship” approach)
Create “agrobiodiversity reserves”, as specially protected
areas, aimed at protecting wild relatives of cultivated plants
and the diversity of domesticated plants on farm, with the
involvement of local farmers;
Example: “Parque de la Papa” (Cuzco, Peru): Quechua-
Aymara, with the support of ANDES: around 750 native
potato varieties are cultivated in the park territory.

27. Farmers’ rights: how to implement
(“stewardship” approach)
Globally Important Ingenious Agricultural Heritage Systems
(GIAHs), FAO, UNESCO and other international institutions.
(Ex: rice terraces in Philipines, oasis of the Magreb, in North
Africa, rice/fish integration system in China etc)
Conservation and adaptive management of GIAHs:
“Remarkable land use systems and landscapes which are rich
in globally significant biological diversity evolving from the
co-adaptation of a community with its environment and its
needs and aspirations for sustainable development”

28. Farmers’ rights: how to implement
(“stewardship” approach)
The Satoyama Initiative: Ministry of Environment of Japan,
United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies, in
partnership with the World Agroforestry Center
The Satoyama Initiative aims to conserve sustainable human-
influenced natural environments (Socio-Ecological Production
Landscapes; SEPL) through broader global recognition of their
value.

29. Brazil: public policies in favor of
agrobiodiversity and agroforestry
Most agroforestry sistems in Brazil are managed by small-scale
(family) farmers (main producers of food)
Even though family farmers occupy only 24% of farmland, they
produce 87% of manioc/cassava, 70% of beans, 46% of
maize, 38% of coffee, 34% of rice, 58% of milk, 59% of
pork, 50% of poultry that is consumed by Brazilians.
84.4% of all rural properties in Brazil

30. Brazil: public policies in favor of
agrobiodiversity and agroforestry
Food Acquisition Program (Law 10.696/2003):
Federal government buys local agrifood products directly from
family farmers (which include those dedicated to
agrisilviculture) and distributes them among community
kitchens, popular restaurants, schools, hospitals, nursing
homes, food banks etc (based in the same localities)
2011: R$ 793 million 2011: 160,000 farmers
2012: R$ 1,2 billion 2012: 270,000 farmers
Annual limit (by farmer): R$ 4,500
Monthly mnimal wage in Brazil: R$ 622

31. Brazil: public policies in favor of
agrobiodiversity and agroforestry
National School Food Program (Law 11.947/2009):
All public schools must buy at least 30% of all foods served in
schools directly from family farmers.
Guidelines: Local/regional and organic food products must be
prioritized: native fruits (ex: açaí, Euterpe oleracea), nuts
(Bertholletia excelsia), roots (Manihot esculenta), vegetables
and fish species that are native to the region
Annual limit (by farmer): R$ 9,000 (2011) and R$ 20,000
(2012)
(The program does not establish a minimum sales quantity for
each product, which favors AF systems, which tend to produce
a large diversity of products throughout the year) (Miccolis et
al, 2010)

32. Brazil: public policies in favor of
agrobiodiversity and agroforestry
“Green Salary” (Bolsa Verde), Environmental Conservation
Program (Decree 7.572/2011) or “Forest guardians”
Started in October 2011, in the Brazilian Amazon
R$ 300 every 3 months, for a period of 2 years, as long as the
beneficiary commits himself to develop specific conservation
activities (described on a signed agreement)
For families in extreme poverty (R$ 70 monthly income), who
live in protected areas – National Forests, Extractive and
Sustainable Development Reserves (Human-Inhabited
Protected areas, occupied mainly by rubber-tappers, nut-
gathers, etc), territories occupied by Indigenous people,
Quilombolas, etc

33. However... Agrobusiness ( soybean) is
still the main beneficiary
The National Family Farming .... public credits and subsidies
Program dedicated to agrobusiness in
the same period
Received R$ 16 billion, in (R$ 100 billion)
total, in 2010/2011,
Which corresponds to less than
20% of... (Miccolis et al, 2011)

34. Intangible cultural heritage and
agrobiodiversity
 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible
Cultural Heritage
 Brazil: First registry of a traditional agricultural system as
“intangible cultural heritage”
 (ACIMRN (Indigenous Communities of Medio Rio Negro,
Brazilian Amazon)
 Agrobiodiversity:
 Central element: manioc/
 cassava (73 varieties)
 243 plant species, including
 fruit trees and medicinal
 plants (Emperaire et al)

35. “Cultural landscapes”
UNESCO Convention on Cultural and Natural Heritage:
“Cultural landscapes” (category created in 1992)
“Cultural landscapes often reflect specific techniques of
sustainable land use, considering the characteristics and
limits of the natural environment they are established in, and a
specific spiritual relation to nature”

36. “Cultural landscapes”
Organically evolved landscape:
“A continuing landscape is one which retains an active social
role in contemporary society closely associated with the
traditional way of life, and in which the evolutionary process
is still in progress”

37. “Cultural landscapes”
Examples:
Implementation at the local
1) Archaeological level (ex: Brazil, Vale do
Landscape of the First Coffee Itajai, in the State of Santa
Plantations in southeast Cuba; Catarina)
2) Puszta Pastoral
Landscape of Hortobagy
National Park, in Hungary;
3) Rice Terraces of the
Philippines Cordilleras;
4) Agricultural Landscape
of Southern Öland (Sweden)

38. THANK YOU VERY MUCH !!!
juliana.santilli@superig.com.br