The Farmers' Rights Project: summary of findings from phase 1: realising farmers' rights under the ITPGRFA

This paper presents findings from Phase I of the The Farmers’ Rights Project, an international project set up to facilitate such a common understanding and develop a basis for proposals to the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) on specific measures to be taken.The paper suggests a number of steps that can be taken at the national level to realise farmer’s rightscreate awareness of the importance of Farmers’ Rights, and its contents pool resources and define objectives for the realisation of Farmers’ Rightsestablish an institutional framework for implementing these objectives review legislation affecting farmers’ rights with a view to creating legal space review agricultural incentive structures with a view to rewarding stewardshipcreate a separate reward mechanism, e.g. a national fund, to support farmers’ maintenance of plant genetic resources – to be supported by inter alia the Multilateral System and/or development co-operation in developing countries with these funds, establish farmers’ programmes on means such as access to plant diversity, conservation measures, participatory plant breeding, strengthening of farmers’ seed systems, enhanced utilisation of plant varieties and market access.The paper also proposes actions to be taken by the ITPGRFA Governing Body:organise regular sharing of experiences from the realisation of farmers’ rights among the Partiesencourage Parties to develop national plans for the realisation of farmers’ rights, and monitor and support the implementation of such plansdevelop minimum standards for farmers’ rights from national and regional experiences to a level of international harmonisationhighlight positive examples of implementation of Article 9 as modelsprovide legislative and institutional assistance to countries in their efforts to realise farmers’ rightsproduce and disseminate public information, and assist countries in communicating the importance of farmers’ rightsensure representation of farmers in the sessions of the ITPGRFA Governing Body.