West African countries sign FAO treaty

Several West African countries were among the 35 developing countries that signed the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture at the conclusion of the World Food Summit in Rome, Italy. A total of 56 countries ratified the convention, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported on Thursday. Burkina Faso, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal were among the signatories. The Treaty, adopted at the FAO Conference in November 2001, aims to conserve plant genetic resources, their sustainable use, and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their use, including monetary benefits resulting from commercialisation. "This binding International Treaty provides for farmers rights, and establishes a multilateral system to exchange the genetic resources of some 64 major crops and forages important for global food security," FAO reported. At the summit, leaders of developing countries appealed to the European Union and the United States to remove farm subsidies and open their markets, the BBC reported. The FAO meeting was a follow-up of a summit five years ago, which pledged to reduce to half the number of people threatened by starvation in the world by 2015. Details of the summit deliberations and the treaty can be found at: http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsummit/english/newsroom/news/6460-en.html