Food security and global security - IEEE

José Esquinas AlcázarBiodiversity and securitytrend towards restricting access to these resources will depend on how theprovisions of the Treaty are interpreted and implemented by countries and bythe international community.■■International CooperationPGRFA should be considered in the context of the agroecosystem where theydevelop and are used, whether from the point of view of ecological balances,or in relation to the traditional knowledge associated with them, or to achievefood security. The guarantee of a diversified, sustainable and nutritionallydiverse food production requires the conservation and sustainable use of allgenetic resources, including those of animals, forests, fish and microorganismsof interest to food and agriculture. The FAO’s intergovernmental commission,which since its establishment in 1983 was concerned only with plant geneticresources, expanded its field of competence in 1995 to also cover other sectorsof agrobiodiversity.130In 2007 the member countries of the FAO negotiated and adopted, throughthe commission, a Multi-Year Programme of Work (MYPOW), including atimetable for the development and periodic publication of reports on the globalstate of the different components of agricultural biodiversity for food andagriculture (28) , identifying the needs, shortages, emergencies, and priorities ofeach sector (crop plant genetic resources, livestock, forests, aquaculture, andmicroorganisms). This Work Programme would culminate in 2017 with the firstpublication of the State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture.This document, with emphasis on agroecosystems, would also have specificmodules for each sector.The priorities and timetable set for the MYPOW (29) will allow better coordinationof activities amongst all countries and provide guidance and an incentive tocoordinate cooperation between them and international organisations workingin this field and which include, at a global level, the FAO and its Commission,the Agrobiodiversity Programme of the CBD, Bioversity and the internationalcentres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research(CGIAR).(28)The first publication on the State of the World and the first Global Plan of Action forAnimal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture was adopted by over 100 countries in2007, at the International Technical Conference on Animal Genetic Resources in Interlake(Switzerland). The FAO Commission is responsible for monitoring and evaluating theimplementation of the Global Plan of Action and the development of the funding strategy forits implementation.(29)FAO. 2009. Report of the 3 rd Meeting of the Governing Body of the International Treaty onPlant Genetic Resources on Food and Agriculture.