15/09/2014

Marshall Islands has deposited the instrument of ratification to the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and will become a contracting Party on 13 October 2014, bringing the total number of Contracting Parties to 132.

The country signed the International Treaty on 13 June 2002 and with this ratification it will become the seventh country in the South West Pacific Region to join this international law instrument designed for the conservation and sustainable use of the most important food crops. The other regional members of the Treaty are: Cooks Islands, Kiribati, Fiji, Samoa, Palau and Australia.

Agricultural production is concentrated on small farms. Coconut is the main crop followed by breadfruit, pandanus, banana, taro and arrowroot. Minor crops planted are pawpaw, sweet potato, limes and vegetables. The most-important commercial crops are coconuts, tomatoes, melons, and breadfruit.

"By becoming a Contracting Party to the Treaty, Marshall Islands will be in a better position to access more diverse and resilient germplasm to better adapt to climate change and to fight plant diseases", said Shakeel Bhatti, Secretary of the Governing Body of the International Treaty.

The leaders of the Pacific Region already endorsed a recommendation in 2012 to support Pacific Island countries and territories that have not yet ratified the Treaty to do so. Since then, the Secretariat of the International Treaty has collaborated with the Secretariat of the Pacific Community to raise awareness on the advantages of joining the Treaty and have provided training to staff in the region through various workshops and technical meetings.

Becoming a Contracting Party will grant Marshall Islands a number of advantages, including facilitated access to a global gene pool of more than 1.6 million plants that belong to the most important food crops. Furthermore, the country will now be eligible to submit project proposals to the Benefit-Sharing Fund of the Treaty, to participate in technology transfer and capacity building programs, and to be represented at the biennial meetings of the Governing Body of the International Treaty.

It is to be noted that the Region already placed the collections of germplasm maintained by the genebank of the Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees (CePaCT) in the Multilateral System of the Treaty at its Third Session of the Governing Body in Tunis in June 2009.