Highlights and images for 22 November 2023

As the global challenges of sustainable agriculture and food security become more urgent, technical and policy approaches become more complex, and international organizations and instruments multiply. Establishing and maintaining structures for cooperation and coordination between relevant processes becomes a prerequisite for efficient policy action towards achieving internationally agreed goals, including the Sustainable Development Goals and the goals and targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

Want to dig deeper into today's talks? Read the full Earth Negotiations Bulletin daily report.

Aspects of collaboration between the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (Treaty) and relevant international instruments and organizations came into the spotlight during Wednesday’s deliberations.

As delegates addressed the contribution of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) to the Treaty, many invited FAO to acknowledge the crucial importance of the Treaty for agricultural biodiversity conservation and global food security and reflect such importance in future budgetary allocations. They lauded continued collaboration with the FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA) and cautioned against duplication of efforts, highlighting work on the draft third report on the State of the World’s plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) and crop wild relatives. Participants also welcomed the efforts of the Global Crop Diversity Trust to support genebanks and raise awareness of the need to strengthen crop diversity, drawing attention to the recently held Global Crop Diversity Summit and the relocation of Ukraine’s seed collection to a safer part of the country.

The meeting highlighted strengthened collaboration between the Treaty and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) through a renewed memorandum of cooperation, including in the context of the GBF; and heard several relevant organizations and genebanks reporting on their activities.

In the afternoon, a contact group addressed the draft resolution on farmers’ rights. Debates focused on establishing an intersessional group on farmers’ rights, including its scope and terms of reference.

An evening plenary, co-chaired by Michael Ryan (Australia) and Sunil Archak (India), discussed future steps for the revision process for the enhancement of the Multilateral System (MLS) of access and benefit-sharing.