On March 28, 2013, the Environment Minister, Izabella Teixeira, signed a commitment with representatives of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo (FIESP) to work together with Brazilian agriculture to find ways to reconcile access to ecogenetics (genetic traits related to different responses to environmental factors) in food production and technological innovation. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss biodiversity targets and the Nagoya Protocol, one of the most important environmental pacts since the Kyoto Protocol.

"This reconciles both FAO food issues and the Convention on Biological Diversity. It was an excellent meeting and we have a lot of work ahead. We are talking about the biodiversity that we have and how we can produce more sustainably from technological advances and genetic knowledge," said the minister.

According to the UN Executive Secretary of the Convention of Biological Diversity, Bráulio Dias, the debate on national environmental legislation must be strengthened since Brazil is one of the few countries that have environmental laws. "There are at least 15 countries with such legislation, but in all of them, and Brazil is no exception, this law is too focused on prohibiting biopiracy and not on encouraging access to ecogenetics, research and technological development. If we don't have this then we won't have any new products and benefits that can be shared."

According to Dias, it is necessary to encourage this development and the sale of products to generate wealth. "The wealth should be shared more fairly so that the countries in which these resources originate also benefit and are able improve their efforts to conserve this material for the future," he said.

Source: Agência Brasil