Yerevan, Armenia
26 October 2026
At a time when governments are debating how to strengthen benefit-sharing arising from genetic resources, a new global report launched at the Seventeenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) by the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture shows how countries cooperate to share crop diversity and its benefits, and what lessons this experience offers for implementing global biodiversity commitments.
Focusing on the implementation of the Multilateral System of Access and Benefit-sharing, this aggregated global publication provides a dedicated overview of how access and benefit-sharing are delivered in an integrated manner through the International Treaty. The report aims to enhance the visibility of the contributions made by the Treaty to the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
Sharing crop diversity and its benefits at a global scale
At the heart of the report, a number of key messages emerge: effective access to plant diversity depends on both legal and information infrastructure, and the Multilateral System is delivering at scale thanks to its broad and sustained participation. Through the Treaty's Multilateral System, countries exchange crop diversity under a common set of rules, giving researchers, breeders and farmers access to the plant genetic resources they need to develop more resilient and productive crops. Alongside access, countries and institutions share knowledge, technologies, training and scientific expertise, demonstrating that benefit-sharing can support food security, climate adaptation and the sustainable use of crop diversity.
One example comes from Malawi, where farmer Edwin Kalengama began growing groundnut and pigeon pea through a project supported by the International Treaty's Benefit-sharing Fund. Better adapted to increasingly unpredictable rainfall, the crops helped improve his livelihood and inspired him to establish a community seed bank that now helps other farmers access seeds and knowledge.
His story reflects a broader global effort. Since 2009, the Benefit-sharing Fund has invested more than USD 35 million in projects across more than 75 developing countries, supporting farmers and local communities in conserving and sustainably using crop diversity. Together, these experiences show that benefits can take different forms, including monetary payments and contributions to the Fund and the sharing of new diversity with the system. In this way, the Multilateral System creates a virtuous circle: the use of plant diversity generates benefits that flow back into conservation and sustainable use, helping to maintain the diversity on which the Multilateral System, and food security more broadly, depend. Sustaining these benefits requires long-term global cooperation. The network of international collections maintained under the Treaty together with the Svalbard Global Seed Vault and the Emergency Reserve for Genebanks, helps ensure that crop diversity remains available even in times of crisis. The report presents examples from Ukraine, Sudan and Guatemala, illustrating how international partnerships can help safeguard collections within the Multilateral System threatened by conflict, infrastructure failures and other emergencies.
"No country is self-sufficient in the crop diversity it needs to feed its people," said Kent Nnadozie, Secretary of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. "The experience of the Multilateral System shows that sharing seeds, knowledge and innovation across borders can deliver real benefits for countries, farmers and communities. As governments discuss how to strengthen benefit-sharing under the Global Biodiversity Framework, this report offers practical evidence that international cooperation can work at scale and produce tangible results."
Lessons for biodiversity cooperation
At COP17, governments are taking stock of progress on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the global plan to halt biodiversity loss by 2030. A central question is how to share the benefits arising from genetic resources fairly and equitably, including benefits associated with the growing use of genetic data.
The report highlights lessons for scaling access and benefit-sharing, strengthening cooperation on crop diversity and supporting conservation efforts during crises. It also identifies ongoing challenges, including discussions on genetic data and the need for continued investment in emergency conservation mechanisms. It also underlines how the Multilateral System generates and shares significant but often overlooked non-monetary benefits, and there are ongoing initiatives to make these benefits more visible and quantifiable.
The report builds on the findings of the International Treaty's 2025 comprehensive analysis of the Multilateral System, drawing on nearly two decades of implementation experience to highlight lessons relevant to ongoing biodiversity discussions.
The publication was presented during the event Multilateral cooperation for plant conservation and food security, organized by the Secretariat of the International Treaty together with the Nordic Genetic Resources Center (NordGen), the CGIAR, the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, and the Crop Trust.
The publication is available in English, French, Spanish and Russian at the following link: https://openknowledge.fao.org/handle/20.500.14283/CE0698EN
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