5th February 2025, from 11:15 to 12:00 IST

The MSSRF Millennial Lecture by Dr Regine Andersen from the Fridtjof Nansen Institute (FNI), Norway is organized by MS Swaminathan Research Foundation and will be held at the MSSRF Headquarters in Chennai, India.

To participate in the webinar, please click here. The meeting ID is: 863 9787 7093  and the Passcode is: 349385

Abstract: Farmer-managed seed systems (FMSS) are essential for present and future food security, especially given the implications of climate change for agriculture: Small-scale farmers in many countries of the Global South rely on FMSS for their seed and propagating material and thus for their seed and food security. Local crop diversity is often particularly adapted and adaptable to climate change. Nevertheless, FMSS are largely neglected in policies and legislation, and thus their potential contributions to food and nutrition security and management of crop genetic diversity are under-developed. In her lecture, Dr Andersen will talk about how FMSS relate to seed and food security, the history of Farmers’ Rights, including the pivotal role of Prof. MS Swaminathan and India, present an analytical approach to understanding Farmers’ Rights and provide an update on the current state of negotiations. She will furthermore highlight how well-functioning community seed banks (CSBs) can be seen as examples of the realization of Farmers’ Rights, while also being negatively affected by barriers to Farmers’ Rights. She will ask how India may continue to pilot the realization of Farmers’ Rights and illustrate some possibilities based on the joint FNI-MSSRF project DIVERSIFARM-India.

About the Speaker: Dr Regine Andersen is the Research Director for Biodiversity and Natural Resources at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute (FNI), Norway. As a Research Professor with doctoral degree in political science, she is specialised in the governance of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture at international, national and local levels, with field experiences from many countries of the Global South. She has analysed the interaction of international regimes relating to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and the effects for the management of these resources at the national and local levels. In particular, she has followed the implementation of the International Treaty on Plante Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) since it entered into force in 2004, including as an expert to the Norwegian delegation and in various expert groups. She is a specialist in farmers’ rights under the ITPGRFA and is responsible for the website www.farmersrights.org. Dr Andersen is also engaged in research on community seed banks in the context of farmers’ rights and with a particular view to their contribution to strengthening farmer-managed seed systems for food and nutrition security among smallholder farmers in the Global South. She is currently the leader of the project DIVERSIFARM-India, which is implemented together with the MSSRF, with the support of the Royal Norwegian Embassy in New Delhi.