The Secretariat of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGR) has made available online the statistics of the Treaty's Multilateral System of access and benefit-sharing (ABS), in order to increase the understanding of germplasm flows, as part of the Global Information System on plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA).
10 March 2015: The Secretariat of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGR) has made available online the statistics of the Treaty’s Multilateral System of access and benefit-sharing (ABS), in order to increase the understanding of germplasm flows, as part of the Global Information System on plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA).
The online publication of the statistics was authorized by the ITPGR Governing Body. They were presented, after a period of development and testing, at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) headquarters in Rome, Italy on the occasion of the meeting of the Bureau of the sixth session of the Governing Body.
The statistics show the standard Material Transfer Agreements and material sent and received, the users of the system, and PGRFA still under development. The figures demonstrate that almost 96% of the material in the Multilateral System belongs to one of the crops listed in Annex I of the Treaty, with the number of recipients at approximately 6,215, in 157 countries. Centers of the CGIAR consortium are among the major providers of materials. [ITPGR Press Release][Statistics on Germplasm Flow][Charts on Germplasm Flow]