Twelve years of negotiations, 14 meetings of the Working Group to enhance the functioning of the Multilateral System (MLS) of access and benefit-sharing (ABS) of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), hundreds of pages of legal and technical documents and studies, and intense negotiations during the week-long 11th meeting of the Treaty’s Governing Body (GB 11) failed to lead to consensus on a package of measures on the MLS enhancement.

As a background, the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) summary report of the meeting outlines the ITPGRFA’s role in bringing together policymakers, farmers, and plant breeders to “conserve crop diversity and share its benefits for human and planetary well-being.” Originally, its MLS “aimed to ensure the flow of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) needed for the development of new crop varieties for global food security.” “It also aimed to enhance fairness and equity in agricultural development by institutionalizing monetary and non-monetary benefit-sharing and combating biopiracy – the unauthorized use and misappropriation of genetic resources and traditional knowledge,” ENB notes. In addition, the ITPGRFA’s “recognition of farmers’ rights aimed to ensure the reward and continuation of farmers’ practices that have provided the basis for agricultural biodiversity and production.”

However, since its adoption in 2001, it became necessary for the Treaty to adapt to changing policy and agricultural research landscape. Over the course of the past 25 years, biological sciences and technologies entered the information and artificial intelligence (AI) age, the ENB analysis of the meeting observes. Meanwhile, “public agricultural research is in retreat,” and a handful of private companies dominate the commercial seed sector. In addition, the adoption in 2010 of the Nagoya Protocol on ABS under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the CBD agreement in 2022 to establish a multilateral benefit-sharing mechanism (MLM) from the use of digital sequence information (DSI) on genetic resources changed the policy landscape significantly.

Responding to some of these changes, the process to enhance the functioning of the MLS began in 2013, with the aim “to adjust to the new realities and increase user-based payments and contributions to the Benefit-sharing Fund (BSF),” as the “benefit-sharing component of the system was not living up to expectations.”

With no room for compromise on several contentious issues, including monetary benefit-sharing from the use of DSI/genetic sequence data (GSD), the process came to a halt, leaving many disappointed. On a brighter note, GB 11 adopted a series of decisions on cooperation with other international organizations and processes that will advance the objectives of the Treaty “while ensuring mutual supportiveness and synergetic implementation at the national level,” according to ENB.

Work on improved implementation of the MLS as it currently stands continues, with decisions on farmers’ rights and PGRFA conservation and sustainable use paving the way for intersessional work towards GB 12.

GB 11 convened in Lima, Peru, from 24-29 November 2025. It was preceded by regional and interregional consultations from 22-23 November. [ENB Coverage of GB 11]