b'SINCE YOU ASKEDBY: NIELS LOUWAARSWHEN WILL BIO-REAGANOMICS FINALLY COME TO AN END?W hy is it that we cannot create aby the proponents is obvious, includingwhether the focus on benefit sharing in working system of biodiversitythe resulting limitations to access andthe CBD actually supports the other two management? Debates haveuse. Benefit sharing is fair enough, Iobjectives: conservation and sustainable been going on about the question howwould say, but the concept resulted inuse.to conserve biodiversity, promote its usequestions, such as:The only critical questions that and share the benefits arising from such-Who is the user? Only the breeder,were asked were the ones on food secu-use. It surfaced roughly at the time thati.e., the first user touching therity, and human disease agents like bird I graduated and entered the seed sectorresource? Or are the farmers, trad- flu and now COVID, after interventions some 40 years ago. That is not to say thaters, retailers and consumers alsoof FAO and WHO respectively, which led I see myself as the culprit of this unholybeneficiaries and thus users?to bringing back some common good debate that refuses to come to a satisfy- - How much to share? To support con- thinking (and common sense) into theing end though, but it does bother me.servation of PGRFA only, or compen- debate for certain components of biolog-The International Undertaking onsate for all historic injustices? ical diversity. PGRFA (Plant Genetic Resources for-With whom to share? With nationsNow that neo-liberalism is increas-Food and Agriculture) was concluded inaccording to the CBD; or withingly under debateCOVID-19 illustrates 1983. It called for investment in conserva- farmersArt 9 IT? andthe limitations of past privatisation of tion, notably in genebanks, and declared-How to control/enforce? By thehealth care; the Dutch employers organ-the resources a heritage of mankind, aowner, the user or a third party? isation is even calling for significant common good. This fitted in the spirit ofThe system created a sequel ofincreases in minimum wages - it may be the time based on common responsibili- heated debates and additional conceptstime to fundamentally revisit the foun-ties (social security in the welfare stateto make things work such as the Nagoyadations of the global biodiversity policies. in the 1970s) which went hand in handProtocol and now Digital SequenceLike with private hospitals and health with the personal freedom coming out ofInformation. These additions try to mendinsurances, and private electricity and the 1968 uprising in Paris and Woodstockthe system, but do not critically assesscable companies, the entrenched inter-a year later. the neo-liberal foundations of the conceptests are very strong among the parties Timeschangedfundamentallyof benefit sharing: ownership (nationalin the biodiversity debate, but that is in the 1980s with Thatcherism andsovereignty) and market (benefit shar- no reason not to try to discuss a better Reaganomics. Private ownership anding). These foundations, which furthersystem to really support conservation the rules of the market became the gospeldeveloped into a rights-based approach,and use, andyesto make it financially leading to the privatisation of public ser- shun away from the original objectives. possible for those in this world whom we vices in sectors like health and energy. ItCollection of diversity in farm- task to do that. may be odd to connect the Conventioners fields and nature came almost toHow to shape such a regulated on Biological Diversity, concluded in 1992a grinding halt after the coming intocommons as Nobel prize winner Elinor with this turn of events, but the operationforce of the CBD in 1993, which chal- Ostrom proposed to cope with devastat-of the concept of benefit sharing is actu- lenges conservation in times of climateing anti-commons in other fields, requires ally a neo-liberal one: create ownership,change and urbanisation. Sustainablesome new creative brains. It may be leave responsibilities to the owner and letuse is challenged in practice by a signifi- useful to involve some of the key persons the user pay.cantly reduced international exchange ofof the early debates. But we desperately In order to operationalise this,genetic resources following the comingneed to restart the debate and we have to the Heritage of Mankind concept wasinto force of the CBD, and legal uncer- aim high in order to get out of the current replaced by an ownership concept, whichtainties that users face following fromdead-end street.became the national sovereign rights overthe diversity of implementing of rules biological diversity. Nations could deter- introduced by the CBD and ongoingNiels Louwaars is the Managing mine access and terms. The user payspolitical discussions. Therefore, similarDirector at Plantum. This article does was called benefit sharing. The parallelto asking the patent system whether itnot necessarily reflect the views of all with the patent system that was so hatedstill supports innovation, one may wonderPlantum members.36IEUROPEAN SEEDIEUROPEAN-SEED.COM'