14 July 2015: Sweden has announced four annual contributions to the Benefit-Sharing Fund of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGR), amounting to US$300,000.

The contributions, which will be invested in the fourth project cycle of the Benefit-Sharing Fund, serve to illustrate one way of ensuring a steady flow of funds to support the Fund. Funded projects aim to directly assist farmers in developing countries in the management of crop genetic resources for sustainable food security and the scale-up of climate-smart agriculture with a view to improving livelihoods. Under the third project cycle, approved in March 2015, over US$10 million will be invested in 22 projects around the world, while the results of the second project cycle show that more than 700,000 people, most of them farming families, have benefited from Fund support.

A detailed report of the results of the Benefit-Sharing Fund will be made available on the occasion of the sixth session of the ITPGR Governing Body, to be held 5-9 October 2015, in Rome, Italy. [ITPGR News Release][Benefit-Sharing Fund Webpage][ITPGR GB 6 Webpage]