Options for documentation of PGRFA
This is the fourth category of options to encourage, guide and promote the realization of Farmers’ Rights in the Options Document. It comprises options for catalogues, registries and other forms of documentation of PGRFA and protection of traditional knowledge.
About this category of options
Contracting Party have agreed to take measures to protect and promote Farmers’ Rights, including for the protection of traditional knowledge relevant to PGRFA, as appropriate and subject to national legislation (Art. 9.2a).
Measures for collecting and documenting, sharing and disseminating traditional knowledge may be useful to increase overall awareness and recognition of its importance and to prevent loss. The development of Community Biodiversity Registers, Biocultural Community Protocols or similar tools may protect traditional knowledge from misappropriation and/or extinction. Protecting this knowledge may also be a way of recognizing farmers’ and farming communities’ contributions to the conservation and sustainable use of PGRFA (Art. 9.1).
Depending on how measures under this category are set up, other provisions of Art. 9 may also be relevant.
There are three options:
- Option 4A: Recognize, collect and document traditional knowledge on PGRFA, including knowledge relating to cultivation and use.
- Option 4B: Conduct and/or support activities for conserving, sharing and disseminating traditional knowledge relating to PGRFA.
- Option 4C: Support farmers and farming communities to develop instruments to govern access to PGRFA over which they have established rights and traditional knowledge associated with PGRFA based on their local practices, procedures and community protocols.
