What's the CGIAR Ever Done for Us?

Asks Luigi Guarino at the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog.

Dave Woods points out in the comments that:

"[T]here is a glaring hole about the value of the germplasm collections as the basis for varietal improvement both within and beyond the CG and their future value under climate change. But a lot of this value was in bringing in and screening new samples year by year. This was ticking along at about 12,000 samples around the time of the CBD but now seems to have gone down to 5,000 or so a year under the FAO Seed Treaty: FAO is being coy about this number. Unless this figure goes up fast the Treaty is not a policy plus for the CG and could damage global agriculture."

And then there's the dead hand of bureaucracy and "intellectual property" represented by SMTAs ...