between civil society, seed corporations, breeders and farmers in the drafting of IPR; (4) stagnation in funding for common goods germplasm. These trends have reduced options for using germplasm to respond to the uncertainties of the future. They have also increased asymmetries in access to germplasm and benefit sharing and increases vulnerabilities of the poor

     For example, farmers have received no direct compensation for formerly held public accessions that have been sold on to the private sector but have generally benefited from public breeding arrangements. It remains a question if farmers now have to pay for accessing seed stock and germplasm that contain lines and traits that originally were bred by them and originated in their own farming systems. Meanwhile, decreases in funding for public breeding has stagnated research innovations for the public good (e.g., lack of research on orphan crops). New ownership and IPR regimes have restricted movement and made development of noncommercial (public) good constructs more expensive. These changes have limited those actors that do not have legal, commercial and financial power.

2.3.1.2 Genetic resources as a common heritage

Farmers as managers of genetic resources. Historically, farmers have been the principal generators and stewards of crop genetic resources (e.g., Simmonds, 1979). This means that genetic resources have been viewed as a common heritage to be shared and exchanged. The concept places farmers at the center of control of their own food security. The planting of genetically diverse, geographically localized landraces by farmers can be conceptualized as a decentralized management regime with significant biological (Brush, 1991; Tripp, 1997; Almekinders and Louwaars, 1999) and political (e.g., Ellen et al., 2000; Stone, 2007) implications. Studies of traditional farming systems suggest that farmers in Africa (Mulatu and Zelleke, 2002; van Leur and Gebre, 2003) the Americas (Quiros et al., 1992; Bellon et al., 1997, 2003; Perales et al., 2003) and Asia (Trinh et al., 2003; Jaradat et al., 2004;) managed and continue to manage existing varieties and innovate new ones through a variety of techniques including hybridization with wild species, regulation of cross-pollination, and directional selection (Bellon et al., 1997). In many parts of the world, it is women's knowledge systems that select and shape crop genetic resources (Tsegaye, 1997; Howard, 2003; Mkumbira et al., 2003). The fear is that erosion of crop diversity is commonly paralleled by erosion of the farmer's skills and farmer empowerment (Bellon et al., 1997; Brown, 2000; Mkumbira et al., 2003; Gepts, 2004). This loss of farmer's skills (i.e., agricultural deskilling; see Stone, 2007) means a loss of community sovereignty as less of the population is able to cultivate and control their own food (see 2.3.3).

Development of public and private sector. The public sector emerged to catalyze formal crop improvement, focusing on yield with high input requirements and wide adaptability (Tripp 1997; Almekinders and Louwaars, 1999). Major benefits arose from breeding with large, diverse germplasm populations. These advancements had both negative and positive impacts on farming communities as more uniform crops replaced locally adapted crops. Meanwhile, expedichapter

tions to collect global germplasm were underway by several nations and gene banks were established for the conservation of germplasm for use in research and breeding.

     Public sector institutions were the dominant distributors of improved varieties in first half of the 20th century, aiming to reach as large a constituency possible. Where different forms of mass selection formed the main breeding method in the 19th century, the rediscovery of Mendel's laws of heredity (1900) and the discovery of heterosis (1908) spurred the growth of the commercial industry, most notably with the founding of Pioneer Hi-Bred in 1919 (Crow, 1998; Reeves and Cassaday, 2002). Throughout the 20th century, universities and research institutes gradually specialized in basic research while the private sector increased its capacity in practical breeding. The public sector assumed primary responsibility for pre-breeding, managing genetic resources and creating scientific networks that acted as conduits of information and technology flow (Pingali and Traxler, 2002), and creating regulatory bodies for variety testing, official release, and seed certification.

The first institutional arrangements exported to developing countries. The education, research and extension system triangle commonly found in industrial countries was exported to developing countries to help foster agricultural development and food security, mainly through the development of broadly adapted germplasm. With the aid of the Rockefeller Foundation (and later the Ford Foundation), a collaborative research program on maize, wheat and beans in Mexico was founded in 1943. This laid the foundation for the first international research centers of the CGIAR, with the initial focus to improve globally important staple crops (see 2.2.4).

     The formation of the CGIAR centers laid the groundwork for the emergence of the technologies of the Green Revolution. Borrowing from breeding work in developed countries, high yielding varieties (HYV) of rice, wheat, and maize were developed in 1960s and 70s. By the year 2000, 8000 modern varieties had been released by more than 400 public breeding programs in over 100 countries. The FAO launched a significant program to establish formal seed production capacities and so-called "lateral spread" systems in developing countries to make the new varieties available to as many farmers as possible. These public seed projects, financed by UNDP, World Bank and bilateral donors were subsequently commercialized, often as parastatal companies, before national or multinational seed companies were established in these developing countries (World Bank, 1995; Morris 1998; Morris and Ekesingh, 2001).

     The FAO has estimated the economic and social consequences of crop genetic improvement gains emanating from the international agricultural research centers using the IFPRI based model "IMPACT" (Evenson and Gollin, 2003b). Without CGIAR input, it is estimated that world food and feed grain prices would have been 18-20% higher: world food production 4-5% lower, and imports of food in developing countries about 5% higher. Debates continue as to whether increases in food production, such as those of the Green Revolution, necessarily lead to increases in food security (IFPRI, 2002; Box 2-2; see 2.3.3).