Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps he is taking to support farmer seed systems in the Global South.

The FCDO supports the global research organisation, the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR), to support seed systems to improve access of smallholder farmers to more productive and climate-resilient varieties. The CGIAR builds capacity of national research and extension systems and seed organisations to ensure uptake of public-bred varieties and other innovations. The FCDO also supports the operation of the CGIAR genebanks that hold over 700,000 crop varieties, making these available free of charge to support the development of new crop varieties. The genebanks are managed jointly with the Global Crop Diversity Trust and in line with the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. In 2021 CGIAR distributed almost 100,000 samples to users, 50 per cent of which were to developing countries.