ROME: Rich and
poor countries are at loggerheads over how to share benefits from genetic plant
data that could help breed crops better able to withstand climate change, as
negotiations to revise a global treaty are set to resume in Rome tomorrow. The
little-known agreement is seen as crucial for agricultural research and
development on a planet suffering rising hunger, malnutrition and the impacts
of climate change.

"We need all
the 'genetics' around the world to be able to breed crops that will adapt to
global warming," said Sylvain Aubry, a plant biologist who advises the
Swiss government. Rising temperatures, water shortages and creeping deserts
could reduce both the quantity and quality of food production, including staple
crops such as wheat and rice, scientists have warned.

The debate over
"digital sequence information" (DSI) has erupted as the cost of
sequencing genomes falls, boosting the availability of genetic plant data,
Aubry said. "A lot of modern crop breeding relies on these data
today," he added. At the same time, the capability of machines to process
vast amounts of that data to identify special crop traits such as disease
resistance or heat tolerance has grown.

Pierre du
Plessis, an African technical advisor on treaty issues, said companies and
breeders can use DSI to identify the genetic sequence of a desired plant trait
and send it by e-mail to a gene foundry that prints and mails back a strand of
DNA. "Then you use gene-editing technology to incorporate that strand into
a plant. So you have created a new variety without accessing the trait in
biological form," he said. That process could enable businesses to
circumvent the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and
Agriculture which stipulates that the benefits derived from using material from
species it covers - including money and new technology - must be shared.

Developing
states, which are home to many plant species such as maize and legumes used in
breeding, hope to add digital sequence information to the treaty's scope. This
would force companies and breeders that develop new commercial crops from that
data to pay a percentage of their sales or profits into a fund now managed by the
United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The fund's resources
are used to conserve and develop plant genetic resources - the basis of the
foods humans eat - so that farmers, particularly in the developing world, can
cope better with a warming climate.

Most wealthy
nations, which are generally more active in seed production, argue digital
information on plant genetics should be available to use without an obligation
to share benefits. "There's almost no one still doing the old-fashioned, 'let's
try it and see' breeding. It's all based on the understanding of genome and a
lot of CRISPR gene editing creeping in," said du Plessis.

CRISPR is a
technology that allows genome editing in plant and animal cells. Scientists say
it could lead to cures for diseases driven by genetic mutations or
abnormalities, and help create crops resilient to climate extremes. But
developing nations and civil society groups such as the Malaysia-based Third
World Network say companies that develop new crop varieties using this
information could lock access to their critical traits using intellectual
property rights.

Science fiction?

The treaty row
emerged in late October when representatives of governments, the seed industry,
research organizations and civil society attended a meeting at FAO headquarters
in Rome. Negotiations have been going on for more than six years to update the
treaty, which came into force in 2004 and governs access to 64 crops and forage
plants judged as key to feeding the world. Last month, the United States,
Canada, Australia, Japan and Germany rejected a proposal from the co-chairs of
the talks to include "information, including genetic sequence data"
in the treaty's provisions on benefit-sharing. Africa, India, Latin America and
the Caribbean pushed back but the meeting ended without a compromise, which
negotiators now hope to secure before the treaty's governing body meets on Nov.
11.

The International
Seed Federation, a body representing the $42-billion seed industry, says plant
breeding still requires the use of physical material and it is too early to set
the rules on genetic data. "Developing policy based on speculation and on
things that are bordering on scientific fiction doesn't seem wise," said
Thomas Nickson, who attended the Rome talks for the federation. "It is
critical to have the information publicly available, especially for small
companies in developing countries," he added.

But Edward
Hammond, an advisor to Third World Network, said small farmers needed support,
and open access to plant data should not mean a "no-strings-attached
free-for-all". "Resilience to climate change is being grown in the
fields," he said. "Interesting and new varieties are appearing in the
fields as they adapt. This is not coming from companies using new seeds."

'Unfair system'

Kent Nnadozie,
secretary of the treaty, said if it were agreed the genetic data should be
freely available, it would be mostly developed countries that had the capacity,
resources and technology to put it to use. "The fear is that (this)
perpetuates and reinforces an unfair system or... amplifies it," he said.

Concerns over
increasing privatization and monopolization of food crops - which experts say
threaten agricultural biodiversity - played a role in the treaty's origins.

Its aim was to
build a multilateral approach to access and exchange plant resources, with
"fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from their use"
as a means to address historical imbalances between farmers and seed companies.
While breeders and seed firms rarely pay for the knowledge and genetic
resources they source from farmers and indigenous peoples, farmers usually have
to buy the seeds of the improved crop varieties businesses produce and sell.

So far, more than
5.4 million samples of plant genetic resources have been transferred under the
treaty between governments, research institutes and the private sector in 181
countries, its secretariat said. A large majority of those transfers are
improved materials from CGIAR, the global agricultural research network, to
public-sector research organizations in developing countries tackling food
security issues, said Michael Halewood, head of policy at Bioversity
International, a CGIAR centre.

"Countries
around the world have always been interdependent on crop genetic resources.
Climate change is making us all more interdependent than ever on those
resources," he said. - Reuters