The International Plant Treaty

The International Plant Treaty, or Seed Treaty, as it is sometimes known, aims to improve global food security by making it easier for scientists and farmers to obtain and use seeds and other plant material for crop improvement, research, and training. It was adopted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 2001 after many years of negotiations and came into force in 2004. As of April 2025, there are 154 contracting parties – 153 countries, plus the European Union.

Among other things, they commit to sharing plant material of 64 globally important food and forage crops that is under the management and control of the national governments and in the public domain, following agreed rules. These crops are listed in Annex 1 of the Treaty. The rules ensure requesters can obtain the material and that, where appropriate, they share a portion of any monetary benefits arising from their use of it. This is referred to as the “Multilateral System of Access and Benefit-Sharing''.

Lots of our favorites, like rice, wheat, maize, potato, oat, coconut, banana, millet, yam, carrot, strawberry, and so on.

Because everything in the Treaty was the subject of intense international negotiations among countries. Not all countries agreed to certain crops being included, so some had to be left out.

Breeders and researchers typically need material from many different sources to get as much crop diversity into their programs as possible. This gives them a better chance of developing new crop varieties that can eventually benefit farmers and consumers. Before the Treaty, they would have had to make separate, bilateral deals with different providers to get those different samples. All that takes time and money… A system like this significantly speeds up the exchange of plant material, helping scientists and farmers make use of it more readily.

Yes, as long as the provider is in one of the 154 contracting parties to the International Plant Treaty. The requester would need to sign something called a Standard Material Transfer Agreement, or SMTA. This ensures requesters abide by the rules set out in the International Plant Treaty, including paying a portion of the monetary benefits arising from their use of that material.

For the Multilateral System to work effectively, genebanks need stable, long-term funding. The International Plant Treaty recognizes the Crop Trust as essential to this, by virtue of its Crop Diversity Endowment Fund. This fund, made up of donations from governments, and to a lesser extent, the private sector, accrues interest, which is then used to support genebanks around the world.

In particular, the Crop Trust has committed to supporting the international genebanks recognized under Article 15 of the Treaty as well as the ultimate failsafe for the whole system, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

The Crop Trust’s shorter-term projects also further the aims of the Treaty, for example by enhancing crop conservation at the national level through support for seed regeneration (growing plants to replenish or increase seed stocks for conservation), duplication of seeds so they can be safely backed up, collecting crop wild relatives to increase available genetic diversity for crop breeding, and more.