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span class="inline inline-left">Crisis: A young boy suffers from malnutrition in South Jakarta. When the boy was two years old, he only weighed 7 kilograms. JP/Ricky Yudhistira During the 20th century, farmers replaced many of their traditional but heterogeneous varieties of crops with fewer homogeneous varieties, causing a huge loss of genetic diversity, scarcity of food and global hunger.

To address these global challenges, the United Nations, through the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), issued a Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources on Food and Agriculture, an international legally binding instrument.

The Treaty facilitates the exchange of genetic material and the sharing of benefits related to safeguarding global diversity.

The Treaty also addresses adaptation to climate change, food security and preservation of on-farm diversity.

Pepe Esquinas-Alcázar, the former secretary of the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA), also director of Center of Studies on Hunger and Poverty and a professor at the University of Cordoba in Spain, told the The Jakarta Post the treaty was finally adopted in 2001 by the FAO, after 20 years of negotiations.

It came into force once 30 countries ratified it, in June 2004.

“We should share [the] benefits [related to safeguarding global diversity] because genetic resources are not distributed equally around the world. They happen to be mainly in tropical and south tropical lands where developing countries are located.”

The southern part of the world is richer in natural resources than the north, thus the north is in a situation of dependency.

“It is paradoxical that countries usually called poor in terms of money are the richest ones in natural biodiversity, which the world needsto solve its food problems.”

One hundred and twenty seven countries have now signed the treaty.

“Leading countries are urging other signatories to the Treaty to act quickly to help it live up to its potential as a hedge against hunger and climate change,” said Clive Stannard, a consultant and former interim secretary of the Treaty.

“This is the world’s best shot at ensuring equitable access to the world’s most precious resource – the crop diversity that underlies our food supply.”

The aim of this treaty is conservation for future generations, because genetic resources are treasures future generations will need to face all kinds of climatic and natural changes.

The Treaty also aims to encourage the sustainable use of genetic resources, and provide access and equitable benefit sharing. The most important part of the Treaty, the most innovative part, is article 9 on farmers’ rights. This article acknowledges the importance of traditional farmers around the world.

—JP/Rita A.Widiadana, Desy Nurhayati