The farmers' rights concept originated in 1983 when agriculture ministers from around the world signed an agreement at the FAO to protect the rights of small farmers who have tended crops for centuries in countries from Sudan to Peru. At the meeting here in June, the main agenda item was to bring the 1983 accord into line with the biodiversity convention signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil. Negotiators, who adjourned after two weeks of talks, must complete their work in time for a ministerial-level conference in Leipzig, Germany, when June comes around again next year. The conference will also produce an inventory of the world's plant genetic resources and lay out a plan of action to protect them from threats, such as disease and pestilence. Part of that plan will address how to fund farmers' rights projects, such as the one in Ethiopia.
Most food crops have thousands of varieties.
There are, for example, as many as 5,000 kinds of potatoes. Other crops, like rice, are believed to have more than 100,000 varieties, each of which has special properties. From the Toposa communities of Sudan to the Tanimuka and Yukuma communities of the Colombian Amazon, the seeds have often been preserved by local women. During the 1984 famine in Sudan, local women risked their lives to protect the seed for the following year's planting. Today, however, most crops are grown on large farms which ordinarily cultivate only one or two varieties of new, high- yielding seeds.