Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 6822 I EUROPEAN SEED I EUROPEAN-SEED.COM supportive implementation of the Treaty, the CBD and its Nagoya Protocol. The secretary of the Treaty was requested to continue to explore, alongside the executive secretary of the Convention, practical means and activities to further enhance cooperation. Consequently, in 2012 the executive secretary of the CBD, Braulio Diaz, and I launched a Joint Initiative for the Harmonious Implementation of the Convention and the International Treaty, which has since conducted a range of activities to facilitate a coherent implementation of access and benefit-sharing which takes into account the specificity of agricultural crops and special needs of plant breeding. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS FOR BREEDERS To conclude, the environment in which the International Treaty facilitates the sustainable use of plant genetic resources in plant breeding is rapidly changing: the entry into force of the Nagoya Protocol and an increasing dematerialization of the use of plant genetic resources bring significant changes in how plant breeding may be facilitated in the future. The Treaty is responding to these changes through the enhancement of its Multilateral System and the launch of its Global Information System. An additional ramification of these changes is that plant breeding for major crops becomes more knowledge intensive and the use of intellectual property-protected breeding inputs — from patented traits to elite lines maintained as trade secrets with associated data — plays an increasingly important role in developing new varieties. One implication for breeders is that in the future they will need to address legal encumberances to their breeding activity deriving from both the access and benefit-sharing frameworks applicable to their genetic material and from the intellectual property titles applicable to their intangible breeding inputs. As these regu lator y frameworks intersect more and more, it will become increasingly efficient for breeders to deal with both types of legal encumberances in an integrated manner when ensuring their freedom-to-operate and legal certainty for their breeding programmes. Seen from the perspective of such an integrated ABS and IPR perspective, the entry into force For f u l l i n fo on t he Treaty visit www.fao.org/ plant-treaty https://mls. planttreaty.org/itt/ of the new ABS regime may therefore be not exclusively an operational constraint, but also a potentially enabling factor in a breeding environment where the relationships between a breeder and other breeders, gene banks, providers of genetic material, providers of traits and advanced characterization data are structured through multiple and overlapping sets of rights and obligations. At company level, the evolution of an ever more complex access and benefit- sharing legal regime, that is increasingly intersecting with the practical use of existing intellectual property systems, will therefore likely require integrated solutions for dealing with the various facets of rights and obligations in plant genetic resources for food and agriculture in an efficient and comprehensive manner. — Shakeel Bhatti is secretary of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. “IN THE FUTURE, MANY PARTS OF THE WORLD WILL NEED CROPS THAT CAN SURVIVE WITH LESS WATER.” Hazera is a global leader in the seed industry. Hazera brings you expertise, innovation and local support. We grow hand-in-hand with our partners. The success of our customers is at the heart of everything we do. • Expertise • Innovation • Support Committed to Growing Together