National Biodiversity Authority reconstitutes its Agrobiodiversity expert panel

Under the Biological Diversity Act, the NBA reconstituted its Expert Committee on Agrobiodiversity — chaired by Padma Shri Dr P L Gautam — to guide conservation, sustainable use and benefit-sharing of agricultural genetic resources.

What happened

• The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) reconstituted its Expert Committee on Agrobiodiversity under Section 13(1) of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, for a period of one year.
• The committee will provide expert guidance on the conservation, sustainable use and access and benefit-sharing (ABS) of agricultural biodiversity and related matters.
• Padma Shri Dr P L Gautam — a renowned agricultural scientist and former Chairperson of both the NBA and the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Authority (PPVFRA) — was appointed Chair, with the Chairperson of PPVFRA as Co-Chair.
• The Expert Committee has been an advisory body of the NBA since 2005, reconstituted periodically to address emerging issues concerning agricultural genetic resources.
• Its work supports the Act's implementation on issues including the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) and access-and-benefit-sharing arising from the export of seeds of crop varieties.

For Prelims

• National Biodiversity Authority (NBA): A statutory body (est. 2003) under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, headquartered in Chennai, under the MoEFCC. It regulates access to India's biological resources and associated knowledge, especially by foreign entities.
• Biological Diversity Act, 2002: India's law implementing the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), with a three-tier structure — NBA (national), State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs), and Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs) at the local level (which maintain People's Biodiversity Registers).
• Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS): The CBD's third objective — fair sharing of benefits from the use of genetic resources. The Nagoya Protocol (2010) is the international ABS framework; the NBA administers ABS in India.
• Agrobiodiversity: The diversity of crops, livestock and associated species used in agriculture — central to food security, climate resilience and farmers' rights.
• PPVFRA: The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Authority (under the PPVFR Act, 2001) — protects plant breeders' and farmers' rights; India is unusual in legally recognising farmers' rights to save/use/exchange seeds.
• ITPGRFA: The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (2001) — a 'multilateral system' for sharing crop genetic resources; relevant to seed exchange and benefit-sharing.
• Don't confuse: The NBA (biodiversity access/ABS, MoEFCC) is distinct from the PPVFRA (plant-variety/farmers' rights, Agriculture Ministry) — though they overlap on agri-genetic resources, as the joint Chair/Co-Chair here shows.

For Mains

Syllabus: GS3.14 · GS3.4 · Linkage L2