Global Crop Diversity Trust

The Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT) says its mission is "to ensure the conservation and availability of crop diversity for food security worldwide".

However, among its funders are genetic modification (GM) corporations Syngenta and DuPont, which depend on the privatization and patenting of genes for profit (see Funding, below).

Activities

Doomsday Vault

One of the GCDT's programmes is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault or Doomsday Vault, as the media have nicknamed it. This is a vast storage unit in Northern Norway for the world's germplasm (seeds) that GCDT claims "will be the ultimate safety net for the world’s most important natural resource". The Global Crop Diversity Trust funds the operation and management of the Seed Vault.

The GCDT acknowledges global concerns about who will have access to this germplasm of crops developed freely over millennia by farmers. The GCDT claims that freedom of access will be ensured by the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture:

any seeds accepted for storage at the Vault must be freely available under the terms of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources. In other words, there are no seeds stored at the Seed Vault which would not be easily accessible simply by directly contacting the genebank which sent them.

However, critics of the treaty list unresolved issues, including concerns about how copyrighted genetic material will be treated, the extent to which farmers and communities will be allowed to access and breed seeds from seed banks, and the precise mechanism under which disputes will be settled.

Affiliations

• Bioversity International: The Global Crop Diversity Trust is listed among the Top 20 donors to Bioversity International in BI's Annual Report 2008.

People

Board

As at June 2009:

• Margaret Catley-Carlson – chair
• Wangari Maathai – vice-chair

• Lewis Coleman
• Sir Peter Crane – fellow of the Royal Society, UK
• Jorio Dauster – board chairman of Brasil Ecodiesel
• Adel El-Beltagy – chair of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR)
• Cary Fowler – former member of the National Plant Genetic Resources Board of the US and the Board of Trustees of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico
• Emile Frison – director general of Bioversity International
• John Lovett – chair of the Cooperative Research Centre for National Plant Biosecurity, Australia
• Karl Erik Olsson – former Minister of Agriculture of Sweden
• Modibo Tiémoko Traoré – former Minister for Rural Development with the Government of Mali. FAO Assistant Director-General charged with the Agriculture and Consumer Protection Department.

Funding

According to the GCDT website, its donors as of June 2009 are the following governments, foundations and corporations:

• Australia (AusAID)
• Brazil (EMBRAPA)
• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation/UN Foundation
• Canada (CIDA)
• CGIAR Centres
• Colombia (Ministry of Agriculture)
• DuPont/Pioneer Hi-Bred
• Egypt (Ministry of Agriculture)
• Ethiopia
• Gatsby Charitable Foundation
• Germany
• Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
• Gordon J. Hammersley Foundation
• Grains Research and Development Corporation
• India (Ministry of Agriculture)
• International Seed Federation
• Ireland (Irish Aid)
• Italy (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
• Lillian Goldman Charitable Trust
• New Zealand (Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry)
• Norway (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
• Rockefeller Foundation
• Sam Spiegel Foundation
• Spain
• Sweden (Sida)
• Switzerland (SDC)
• Syngenta AG
• Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture
• Systemwide Genetic Resources Programme
• United Kingdom
• United Nations Foundation
• United States of America (USAID)
• World Bank - CGIAR

Contact

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Website:

http://www.croptrust.org/