Valuing Crop Genetic Resources

Abstract

Although crop genetic resources have been recognized as valuable, there has been little progress in specifying a financial value. Crop genetic resources are made up of two primary components, crop gene pools and agro-ecosystems, with six different subcomponents within these. Markets for determining value of crop genetic resources are generally nonexistent or inadequate, a situation that is compounded by their historic status as public goods. Both providers of crop genetic resources and conservation underwriters now look for more exact appraisals of the value, largely in response to the Convention on Biological Diversity. Various methods of assessing value are reviewed. Prospective equity for conservation should replace equity for previous transfers. Market approaches using intellectual property and contracting are unsuitable for crop genetic resources, but nonmarket methods are available. Different approaches are required for different types of crop genetic resources and for estimates of their private value to farmers and their social value.Despite warnings about the folly of pricing biological diversity (Ehrenfeld, 1988), conservationists have been drawn into the predicament of finding monetary value for biological diversity, and conservators of crop genetic resources are bound to follow the same course. The search for value is driven by notions of profit (&dquo;how much can we charge?&dquo;) and by budgeting for research and conservation (&dquo;how much must we spend?&dquo;), but it also relates to understanding the behavior of farmers and other stewards of biological resources. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) (United Nations, 1992) reinforces the belief that biological resources can generate income for the people and governments who control them. Increased competition for scarce public resources to meet the costs of conservation drives the search for value as much as commercial prospects. These signs are manifest in many ways and places, from farmers' fields to international organizations.A conspicuous obstacle to valuation and compensation is the longstanding principle of common heritage that treats genetic resources as public goods and not commodities. The common heritage principle is historically derived from plant exploration by naturalists and holds that genetic resources are equivalent to basic theory and other scientific