Guiding principles for the development of Future Harvest Centres' policies to address the possibility of unintentional presence of trangenes in ex situ collections

The Genetic Resources Policy Committee (GRPC) and the Science Council of the CGIAR organized the workshop "Technical issues associated with the development of CGIAR policies to address the possibility of adventitious presence of transgenes in CGIAR ex situ collections"  from 30 August - 1 September 2004 in Rome, Italy.
 

Introduction

The meeting was attended by technical experts from within and outside the Future Harvest Centres. Representatives of all stakeholders, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the private sector, NGOs and farmers were also invited. (see Workshop Final Report). They explored ways and means to handle the unintentional presence of transgenes in germplasm collections, with the goal of providing technical inputs into a process that would enable each of the Future Harvest Centre genebanks to draw up procedures aimed at preventing the unintentional introgression of transgenes into the collections.

The agenda included topics and issues that allowed the workshop to achieve the following objectives:

• General objective: to provide technical inputs to initiate a process to develop a system-wide policy (or policies) concerning how to respond to the probability of unintentional introgression of transgenes into the ex situ collections held by the IARCs of the CGIAR.
• Specific objective: to collect and share technical and economic information associated with institutional strategies and practices for collecting, managing and distributing materials to reduce/obviate this risk, including screening for GM elements and associated costs, growing out and other management practices, sharing responsibilities with national partners, etc.

Workshop results

Introductory presentations were made by the different stakeholders present at the meeting on their respective perspectives as well as by experts addressing specific technical matters of importance for the development of guiding principles.

The presentations addressed the following aspects:

• Institutional (genebank) perspectives
• Private sector perspectives
• Farmers perspective
• CIMMYT experience
• The results of a survey on genebank practices regarding GMOs
• Regulations, guidelines and/or codes of practice
• Costs associated with testing unintentional presence of transgenes in ex situ collections.

Copies of these presentations and/or their summaries can be downloaded from the right navigation menu.

The information provided during these presentations and the subsequent discussions formed the input for the four breakout working groups, addressing the following topics:

1) the biology and transgenic status of Annex I crops;
2a and b) best practices in germplasm management for conventional genes and transgenes;
3) sampling, screening and testing.

Reports of the breakout groups were presented to the plenary and subsequently discussed and finalized, including a number of recommendations. The outcome of the workshop is the first step in a consultative process that clarifies the way forward.

Finalization of the guiding principles

Based on the technical information from the workshop, the Genetic Resources Policy Committee drew up draft guiding principles.

The draft guiding principles were widely circulated over a six month period for consultation with all stakeholders. They were distributed to NARS, civil society organizations, and farmers organizations through the IPGRI website, the Global Forum on Agricultural Research, and GRAIN's bio-IPR listserver for inputs and comments.

The comments received were considered point-by-point and the draft was revised accordingly at the meeting of the GRPC in March 2005 in Hyderabad, India. The final version was unanimously adopted by the GRPC at that time and recommended for adoption by the Future Harvest Centers of the CGIAR.

Subsequently, the Centers' Director Generals (comprising the Future Harvest Alliance Executive) unanimously adopted the guiding principles.

Download the guiding principles as adopted by the GRPC   PDF file, 18.5Kb.

Read the guiding principles web page

Send comments to Michael Halewood.

GMO Workshop Information online
Introduction
The guiding principles or read the document online.

GMO Papers - PDF files
The guiding principles
Workshop Final Report
General statements on the adventitious presence of GMOs (from European Seed Association)
Farmers representative
Release of GMO Varieties vis-à-vis Germplasm Management in Genebanks: An Indian Perspective
Overview, the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation and the National Plant Germplasm System

GMO Workshop Presentations - PDF and Powerpoint files
Cost Implications for Transgene Detection
 A private sector perspective
 Management of ex situ collections in the wake of transgene flow
 General statement
 Managing possible adventitious introgression of gm materials in ex situ pgr collections - A View From Embrapa-Brazil   (Luciano Lourenço Nass, Embrapa)
 An Industry's Perspective
 Overview, the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation and the National Plant Germplasm System