Government, private sector and academic stakeholders are seeking better defined, tighter controls over the country’s plant genetic resources – an issue that has been highlighted by multinational firms’ free, unregulated extraction of such local resources to develop products like medicines that are then sold for profit globally.

A statement of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development, or PCARRD, said this is the focus of a workshop at the Astoria Plaza in Ortigas Center, Pasig City, that started Tuesday and ends Today (19 October).

A key target output is a national plant genetic resources conservation plan that will identify policies and laws to improve intellectual property rights protection, as well as define a framework for access to and benefit sharing from the country’s genetic resources, particularly in the context of use of such resources for research and development of commercial products.

“Plant genetic resources for food and agriculture have gained considerable attention in recent years in the local and international arena. The Philippines, as an agriculture country, finds these resources of particular importance. This important resource, however, is threatened due to habitat loss and destruction; biological, chemical, and environmental pollution; displacement of indigenous crop species by modern varieties; and natural disasters,” the statement read.

“As debate over issues of sovereignty, control and ownership of PGRFA (plant genetic resources for food and agriculture) has been going over the years, management of these resources has become even more cumbersome of late. Trade relations, intellectual property rights, biosafety, rights of indigenous communities, mechanism of access, benefit sharing, farmers’ rights and public-private sector relations are examples of issues that have complicated the management of PGRFA,” it noted.

“These is a need to harmonize ongoing and future activities in the country to ensure sustained efforts on … conservation and utilization [of these resources].”

The meeting is sponsored by PCARRD, the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture, Bioversity International (formerly the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute), as well as the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Plant Industry and Bureau of Agricultural Research.