Sanjay Suri, LONDON, Jan 18 (IPS) - Peru gave the world the potato, and the potato now offers indigenous people around the world a new recipe for securing their rights.

A new agreement between six indigenous communities and the International Potato Centre in Cusco, Peru, heart of the old Inca civilisation in the Andes mountains of Latin America, recognises the right of these communities over the unique potato strains that they have developed and grown.

"No, this does not mean that these communities will now procure patents over these varieties of potato," Alejandro Argumedo, associate director of the Association for Nature and Sustainable Development (ANDES), a Cusco-based civil society group led by indigenous peoples, told IPS.

"These indigenous people are against patents," Argumedo explained. "They represent a model of property that does not fit into their worldview. Indigenous people are used to exchanging and sharing information in open ways. But this means a legal agreement that no one else can claim intellectual property rights over their knowledge."

The implications can be far-reaching, Argumedo said. Whether it is varieties of corn in Mexico or basmati rice in India, the agreement over these potatoes "is a first legal sign of the restoration of rights that indigenous people once had."

Peru would of course use potatoes to break new ground; it is the official centre of the world of potatoes.

"Potatoes are important for us as food but also as a cultural symbol," Argumedo said. "We have co-evolved with potatoes. Peru gave the potato to the world, they are so important in marriage and religious ceremonies. They mean so much in Andean culture and iconography that goes back thousands of years."

The Andes region in and around Peru has more than 2,000 varieties of potato, among more than 4,000 varieties around the world. A potato park in Cusco produces about 700 varieties of potato.

ANDES helped broker the agreement with the International Potato Centre, one of 15 consultative groups for international agricultural research centres responsible for the world's largest agro-biodiversity gene bank collections.

The eminent reputation of the centre gives strong international weight to the agreement. Although it does not involve a government, it is legal under Peruvian law.

The new agreement "means that Andean communities can unlock the potato gene bank and repatriate biological diversity to farming communities and the natural environment for local and global benefit," ANDES said in a statement Tuesday.

Though excluded and often oppressed, indigenous peoples are the traditional custodians of biodiversity, and this agreement recognises that "the conservation, sustainable use and development of maximum agro-biodiversity is of vital importance in order to improve the nutrition, health and other needs of the growing global population," ANDES says.

Several policy analysts and civil society campaigners are preparing to push for similar initiatives at a meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity to be held in Bangkok next month, and at a World Intellectual Property Organisation meeting to be held in Geneva in June.

The new agreement, called the "agreement on the repatriation, restoration and monitoring of agro-biodivisity of native potatoes and associated community knowledge systems", will challenge the trend of "privatising genetic resources and indigenous knowledge which has seen seed gene banks swallowed up by unaccountable research bodies and corporations, threatening local livelihoods and cultural ways of life," ANDES said in its statement.

ANDES campaigned for the agreement with considerable support from the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the government of the Netherlands.

"Civil society groups, particularly those led by indigenous peoples, should not be dictated to, but they do need greater support from the rich countries," Dr Michel Pimbert, director of the sustainable agriculture and rural livelihoods programme at IIED, said in a statement.

"Groundbreaking agreements, like this example in Peru, require negotiation with all parties on an equal footing," he said, "which means boosting the capacity of local indigenous communities to argue their case for access to the genetic resources they helped develop in the first place."

I don't know what this agreement legally means. Maybe it's completely benign, or perhaps it is legally meaningless.

There are some phrases in the article that bother me:

"'These indigenous people are against patents,' Argumedo explained. 'They represent a model of property that does not fit into their worldview.'"

Could that be because plant patents expire in about 25 years, and they want to claim ownership of centuries old varieties?

"The implications can be far-reaching, Argumedo said. Whether it is varieties of corn in Mexico or basmati rice in India, the agreement over these potatoes 'is a first legal sign of the restoration of rights that indigenous people once had.'"

How are the rights of Mexicans protected? The link below states, "In China, for example, farmers were growing an estimated 10,000 wheat varieties in 1949, but this number had dropped to 1,000 by the 1970s. In Mexico, farmers today are raising only 20 percent of the corn varieties they cultivated in the 1930s." Did someone take all of those varieties away from Mexico, or did they stop growing them on their own in favor of modern hybrids?

"unlock the potato gene bank and repatriate biological diversity"

Does that mean the diversity that the evil gene banks saved and then was lost in the place of origin?

"'agreement on the repatriation, restoration and monitoring of agro-biodivisity of native potatoes and associated community knowledge systems', will challenge the trend of 'privatising genetic resources and indigenous knowledge which has seen seed gene banks swallowed up by unaccountable research bodies and corporations, threatening local livelihoods and cultural ways of life'"

I'm not trying to speak in favor unaccountable monolithic massive corporations, but how does one of them swallowing a seed gene bank threaten anything? Wasn't it already lost?

Skipping back up to the fourth paragraph: "But this means a legal agreement that no one else can claim intellectual property rights over their knowledge."

Who's claiming intellectual property rights over their knowledge or varieties? Aren't they claiming rights over varieties developed from the old varieties? Logically, wouldn't this mean that there is no right to any modern variety of potatoes, tomatoes, or corn, for example? Don't they steal the knowledge of the indigenous people?

Then GarlicGrower wants to steal some more!
"I saw a show on PBS tv that showed a Peruvian marketplace with bushels of beautiful potatoes of all shapes and colors.
I'm wishing I could get hold of a few to grow too. especially the bright orange ones :-)
Anyone know of US sources?"

Well, there are cases of indigenous people's herbal wisdom being - or in danger of being -usurped by a company. To put it very simply. Take the example of neem, a tree which has been used for centuries. A company, I don't remember which one right off the top of my head, has been able to isolate the specific phytochemical which makes neem effective in controlling insect pests. The company tries to patent or otherwise establish the rights over the particular chemical and perhaps the genes that control it's production in the plant. If the company can legally establish such control, they then can contorl -theoretically- the production of products from the neem tree, perhaps even eventually control (that means not let anyone else use it) and charge licensing fees to other for use of a plant/phytochemical that has traditionally been free for useage by anyone who can grow one. Tradtional healing loses, and comany stands to make $.
Strains of rice and other grains (soybeans for example) can have genes spliced into them for certain growing advantages. But the company that has sold the see, then has control over the progeny of theose seeds. It tells an indigenous farmer who has saved his own seed for years to save costs, that he now cannot do so with that line of seed. Who wins the $ in this case.?

The issue is control, and control of $ to be made through isolation of active ingredients.

I don't want to rip off native farmers. I want to partake in the joy of growing traditional and unmanuipulated potatoes and other vegetables.

ooo, I talk too much , perhaps.
Maryanne