Farmers' access to genebank material

Facilitating access to germplasm under the Multilateral System (MLS) of the International Treaty could be considered as a contribution to benefit-sharing. The Nordic Genetic Resource Centre (NordGen) is the genebank maintaining germplasm of Nordic origin as well as material relevant for the Nordic region. The seed material stored at NordGen is available upon request for plant breeders, plant researchers, museums and other bona fide users. Germplasm managed by Nordgen is available in small quantities for research, breeding, conservation or similar purposes. While NordGen mainly serves the scientific community; it also honours reasonable requests from individuals, such as farmers and gardeners, provided that the requester has a serious interest in seed saving and maintaining old or rare varieties. To facilitate access for these individuals, NordGen has developed a simplified material transfer agreement, called ‘Hobby Material Transfer Agreement’; a small administrative fee was introduced to manage the rising number of requests.