At its annual meeting in Vienna, the European Seed Association makes a voluntary financial contribution of €300,000 to the FAO International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources in Food in Agriculture (FAO IT).
ESA had announced this voluntary contribution at its Lisbon congress in October 2014 and has now made good on its promise a year later, following a formal announcement made by its secretary general, Garlich von Essen, at the FAO’S governing body meeting in Rome a week ago.
The Treaty is currently undergoing an extensive revision discussion, mainly in view of the lack of financial resources flowing into its Access and Benefit Sharing FundHanding over the donation, ESA President Gerard Backx underlined the importance of the Treaty for continued access to genetic resources worldwide as the principle resource for future plant breeding as well as the need to bring its rules and pro-cesses more into line with companies’ business realities.
More information is available at: https://www.euroseeds.eu/esa-hands-300000%E2%82%AC-voluntary-financial-contribution-fao-it#sthash.2s6Ux2Mx.dpuf
