The History of Farmers' Rights - Fridtjof Nansens Institutt

10 Regine Andersen
The Council noted with satisfaction the Commission’s decision to
initiate negotiations through its Working Group to achieve an
agreed interpretation of the controversial parts of the international
Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources, and to include in this
interpretation clarification and recognition of plant breeders’ rights
and farmers’ rights.
However, in the ensuing Twenty-fourth Session of the Conference in
Rome in November 1987, there was no reported mention of farmers’
rights (C 1987/REP: Report of the Conference of FAO Twenty-fourth
Session, Rome, 7–27 November 1987).
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As we can see from these reports from the four relevant meetings in 1986
and 1987, opinion differed as to the concept of farmers’ rights and
whether and how to give it recognition. However, various considerations
and practical solutions were suggested already at this point (particularly
in 1987), and these were more or less reflected in later discussions, in the
literature and in the final recognition of farmers’ rights in the International
Treaty. The negotiations in 1987 can be said to form the foundation
for all further negotiations on farmers’ rights, and provided substantial
input to the framing of our current understanding of the concept.
2.2 A note on the Keystone Dialogues
Keystone Center (1991): Oslo Plenary Session. Final Consensus
Report: Global Initiative for the Security and Sustainable Use of Plant
Genetic Resources. Third Plenary Session, 31 May–4 June 1991,
Oslo, Norway (Keystone, Colorado: Keystone Center).
In the controversies on control over genetic resources in the 1980s, there
were deep conflict lines between the parties. That is why William Brown,
then chair of the US National Board for Plant Genetic Resources, initiated
a contact with the Keystone Center in Colorado, with the request of
holding a dialogue on plant genetic resources among international stakeholders.
11 The Keystone Approach was to invite stakeholders as individuals,
to reduce conflict level and seek dialogue, to keep the discussions
off the record, and to produce a report on the basis of consensus only.
The Keystone Dialogues took place in 1988, 1990 and 1991, in Keystone,
in Madras (now Chennai) and in Oslo respectively, and were chaired by
Prof. M.S. Swaminathan, who also led an Interim Steering Committee
that gave direction to the dialogues. Facilitators were the staff of the
Keystone Center.
The Center gathered altogether 92 stakeholders from 30 countries at its
three sessions and was important in framing the international discussions
on such issues as farmers’ rights, common heritage of mankind, international
funding and to some extent intellectual property rights. The 1990
11 Cary Fowler (1994): Unnatural Selection. Technology, Politics and Plant
Evolution (Yverdon, Switzerland: Gordon and Breach), p. 197.