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Recent Transfers of Agricultural Resources and Their Implications for Developing Countries

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Recent Transfers of Agricultural Resources and Their Implications for Developing Countries Development Policy Review, 2001, 19 (2): 181-204 Unequal Exchange? Recent Transfers of Agricultural Resources and their Implications for Developing Countries Cary Fowler, Melinda Smale, and Samy Gaiji ∗ Plant genetic resources constitute the biological basis for plant breeding and future agricultural development. Their transfer from developing to developed countries over centuries has sometimes been viewed as an example of exploitation, if not ‘biopiracy’. Modern gene flows are different in character and magnitude from historic exchanges, however. This article examines current patterns and finds that developing countries are major net recipients of germplasm samples from CGIAR centres, particularly if ‘improved materials’ are considered. Potentially problematic, intellectual property rights do not currently present major barriers to the availability and use of genetic resources by developing countries. Proposals to restrict flows and redress perceived injustices may reduce the benefits accruing at present to developing countries from germplasm exchanges. Introduction It is well known that most major agricultural crops were domesticated over a period of thousands of years in what are now termed ‘developing’ countries (de Candolle, 1886; Vavilov, 1926; Harlan, 1975; Simmonds, 1976). Historically, the greatest concentration of genetic diversity has consequently been found in these countries (Vavilov, 1926; Zeven and Zhukovsky, 1975). The ‘flow’ of genetic resources from these developing countries to Europe and North America – a process which took place over hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years – unquestionably provided much of the early biological foundation for agriculture in today’s developed countries, and a platform for development and expansion (Fowler, 1994). The implications of 1492 for development, including the massive botanical transfers that took place afterwards, have been the subject of a number of histories (Crosby, 1972, 1986). Commentaries have tended to focus on the economic and developmental advantages of early crop transfers to ‘gene-poor’ Europe and North America, and the lack of benefits which accrued to the Latin American, Asian and African ‘donors’ of this genetic material (Mooney, 1983). Little attention has ∗ Respectively, Honorary Fellow/Senior Adviser to the Director-General, International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) and Associate Professor, Centre for International Environment and Development Studies, Agricultural University of Norway; economist at IPGRI and International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) and Visiting Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI); and Project Leader, System-wide Information Network for Genetic Resources, IPGRI. Overseas Development Institute, 2001. Published by Blackwell Publishers, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 182 Cary Fowler, Melinda Smale and Samy Gaiji been paid to the magnitude and direction of recent flows of genetic resources and their implications. Rather more attention is currently focused on what has been termed ‘biopiracy’, and charges that intellectual property rights are being used to siphon off materials previously considered to be ‘public’ (Shiva 1997, 1999). The impact of flows of genetic materials and the benefits associated with such transfers are inextricably linked with recipients’ capacity to use the materials (de Souza Silva, 1989). Legal restrictions and funding constraints, as well as the condition of the physical capital and research infrastructure, may impede use. Nevertheless, despite the explosion of public concern,1 most attention has been focused on individual cases, with relatively little analysis of the different impacts that different forms of intellectual property rights might have on various kinds of biological materials in the public domain. With the rise of commercial agriculture and the rediscovery of Mendel’s laws of heredity in 1900, modern ‘scientific’ plant breeding began to take hold, and conditions began to emerge for establishing legal protection for the products of this particular form of innovative endeavour (Fowler, 2000). Intra-species diversity provides the raw materials which breeders use to select, recombine and fashion new crop varieties. As crops co-evolve with pests and diseases, continued evolution and ‘improvement’ are necessary for any stable and prosperous agricultural system. Plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) are thus the biological foundation of this effort (Hoisington et al., 1999). The insights of Mendel, together with the ‘modernisation’ of agriculture and the development of markets for crop varieties with particular qualities, combined to shift the focus of attention and interest from the species level to the variety level. The new biotechnologies have prompted a further shift to the gene level. For the most part, interest in acquiring or transferring crop species no longer exists. Public and private sector interests are related to materials at the variety and gene level necessary for breeding new varieties of crops. Interdependence and genetic resources Like developed countries, developing countries have also come to rely heavily on their own production of non-indigenous crops (from other developing country regions) to meet food needs. This ‘dependency’, which evolved over a long period of time in many cases, implies that both developed and developing countries rely on imported germplasm.2 At present, levels of dependence (measured in terms of caloric contribution to nutrition contributed by crops whose ‘centre of diversity’ is outside the country in question) are not markedly different between developed and developing countries,3 a situation that has not been fully appreciated in recent international negotiations over access to biological diversity or reflected in proposals for national legislation 1. A search for the recently coined term, ‘biopiracy’, through one internet search engine (www.hotbot.com), yielded 3,600 citations. 2. ‘Germplasm’ refers to seeds, plants or plant parts that are useful in crop breeding, research, or conservation because of their genetic attributes. 3. This article does not examine the important and related issue of the extent to which developing countries have the capacity to develop these genetic resources. Unequal Exchange? Recent Transfers of Agricultural Resources 183 (OAU/STRC, 1998). Countries in southern Africa, for example, fall between 65% and 100% in their dependence on main food crops that originated outside the region, with most countries exceeding a 90% dependency level (Palacios, 1998).4 Since countries in this region lack both large ex situ (genebank) collections as well as a broad base of modern varieties of their major food crops, future agricultural development will clearly require secure access to the germplasm of non-indigenous crops such as maize (centre of diversity: Central America), cassava (South America), wheat (Near East), rice (Indochina), beans (Central and South America), plantain and banana (Indochina), and potato (South America).5 Africa is not unique, however, in having a food system based on crops with foreign origins. Virtually every region finds itself in a similar situation (FAO, 1998a). The question facing both developed and developing countries today is whether to encourage the flow and use of genetic resources through a multilateral system with a single set of rules agreed by most or all countries and codified in a treaty, or to restrain their exchange as would inevitably occur were access to be handled through myriad bilateral agreements, with each country making separate rules and procedures for access. Under such a bilateral system, those wishing to gain access to all the existing diversity of rice would thus be required to negotiate access for genetic resources separately with each of the more than 100 countries that possess such resources. Alternatively, countries could gain access to the materials through a single genebank, as would probably be the case were genetic resources held by centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) placed within the scope of an agreed multilateral system. Some commentators have pointed to the historic transfer of genetic resources from South to North as evidence of ‘biopiracy’, as noted above, implying that the North’s gain has come from the South’s loss (Shiva, 1990). Some argue that developing countries might, even today, be better served through bilateral systems of access with strict conditions established by each individual country and/or a multilateral system of restricted scope, i.e., one applying only to a few crops. Greater control over access would, they contend, ensure greater benefits to developing countries, which are seen as rich in genetic resources of agricultural crops, despite the greater costs which might be associated with the acquisition (or failure to access) materials needed by the developing countries themselves. It is tempting, and common, to acknowledge no distinction between the historical transfers of crops (and the economic and developmental effects of the transfers) and current germplasm flows and their effects. Likewise, it is common to assume that all 4. Palacios measured the degree to which an individual country’s food energy supply (measured in calories) was dependent on crops whose primary area of genetic diversity was found outside that particular country. 5. It is also interesting to note that countries that
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