Abstract
The recent debates on the legal status of “digital sequence information” (DSI) at the international level could have extensive consequences for the future of agriculture and food security. A large majority of recent advances in biology, medicine, or agriculture were achieved by sharing and mining of freely accessible sequencing data. It is most probably because of the tremendous success of modern genomics and advances of synthetic biology that concerns were raised about possible fair and equitable ways of sharing data. The DSI concept is relatively new, and all concerned parties agreed upon the need for a clear definition. For example, the extent to which DSI understanding is limited only to genetic sequence data has to be clarified. In this paper, I focus on a subset of DSI essential to humankind: the DSI originating from plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA). Two international agreements shape the conservation and use of plant genetic resources: the Convention on Biodiversity and the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. In an attempt to mobilize DSI users and producers involved in research, breeding, and conservation, I describe here how the increasing amount of genomic data, information, and studies interact with the existing legal framework at the global level. Using possible scenarios, I will emphasize the complexity of the issues surrounding DSI for PGRFA and propose potential ways forward for developing an inclusive governance and fair use of these genetic resources.
Highlights
In his Discourse of Inequality, Rousseau states: “You’re lost, if you forget that the fruits of Earth belong to all of us, and Earth itself to nobody” (Rousseau, 1755)
The Seed Treaty has been designed as a sector-specific reply to the Convention of Biodiversity (CBD) (Esquinas-Alcazar et al, 2013; Manzella, 2013) taking into consideration the need of a global commons to counteract loss of agricultural biodiversity and insure food security
It was perceived as a global effort to counteract the trend in privatization of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA), including the challenge associated with recognition of the State sovereignty over genetic resources highlighted by the CBD (Halewood et al, 2013)
Summary
In his Discourse of Inequality, Rousseau states: “You’re lost, if you forget that the fruits of Earth belong to all of us, and Earth itself to nobody” (Rousseau, 1755). Two international agreements shape the conservation and use of PGRFA: the Convention of Biodiversity (CBD) that rules any terrestrial genetic resources and the Seed Treaty, which apply only on a subset of species relevant to agriculture and food security Both are the main elements of the access and benefit sharing framework (Figure 1). All of these genomic techniques allowed a better description (high-resolution fingerprinting) of the overall genetic diversity existing in each germplasm that, in turn, improve identification of relevant traits and allow a better breeding prediction and efficiency (Varshney et al, 2012) This helps ensuring a sustainable use of the PGRFA to provide crops that are locally adapted, resilient to various biotic and abiotic stresses, and necessary to maintain high levels of food security. There are obvious contradictions when limiting access to data in conservation biology: this could possibly impair our understanding of the extent of biodiversity loss ( observed for cultivated plants and their relatives) and, limits our TABLE 1 | Overview of possible options to include DSI-GRFA into existing genetic resources regulatory regime and their possible advantages and limits
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