Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment

Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental, Philippines, 18 July 2024--SEARICE conducted a Biocultural Community Protocols Workshop on 16 to 17 July 2024 in Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental Province, Philippines, as part of the implementation of its FAO-supported project titled, “Engendering access for smallholder farmers to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture for conservation and sustainable use”.

 

Funded by the Benefit-Sharing Fund (BSF) of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), or simply, the Plant Treaty, this two-year project seeks to address the challenge facing farmers, who lack access to seeds and planting materials from which they can develop crop varieties that not only meet their nutritional needs but which are also best suited to local farming conditions. Currently, the farmers rely on their own saved seeds, seeds that they have to buy, or seeds that come packaged with chemical inputs and distributed by the local agriculture office. Through this project, SEARICE and its project partner, Central Philippines State University (CPSU) will build the farmers’ capacity to manage PGRFA, including conservation and sustainable use.

 

The workshop, which was participated in by 15 representatives of farmers’ organizations, one from the local government unit, seven from CPSU, and two from the University of the Philippines at Los Banos UPLB, aimed to enhance the knowledge of SEARICE local partners, especially community partners. on farmers’ rights to seeds, protect small farmers' rights by establishing a mechanism through the biocultural community protocol, and clarify their roles and responsibilities in the conservation and sustainable use of their plant genetic resources (PGRs) and their traditional knowledge therein.

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SEARICE executive director Normita Ignacio said that “biocultural community protocols are declarations or assertions of community rights usually over a resource, in this case PGRs, or simply, seeds. These protocols serve as a tool that will help protect farmers’ rights to the PGRs, or seeds, that they have developed. The protocols that will be established through this project will provide for a community inventory of their PGRs and the traditional knowledge that is associated with them. The protocols also include guidance on how to develop contracts for access and benefit-sharing that small farmers can use to negotiate enforceable conditions for the use of their PGRs by external actors."

 

The workshop, which was held at CPSU, was facilitated by a core team from CPSU and SEARICE, respectively headed by CPSU Production and Enterprise Development Office Director Dr. Maryvic P. Pedrosa and SEARICE Executive Director Normita G. Ignacio. [Ends]