GRAIN

GRAIN is an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) which promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity based on people's control over genetic resources and local knowledge. GRAIN was established in1990 and the main aims of the organisation are to stimulate the knowledge and awareness of biodiversity for society and the factors threatening biodiversity; increase the knowledge and understanding of the structural causes to biodiversity loss and the consequences of this loss for poor groups in the South; stimulate activities and strategies leading to better protection and sustainable use of genetic diversity, with special focus on poor groups and their needs and interests; and to support organisations and individuals activities within the above areas and to ease the communication and collaboration between them.

In 2003 SwedBio took over the support to GRAIN from Sida which has supported the organisation since the beginning of its establishment. After a positive external evaluation in 2003, SwedBio continued the support to GRAIN's multi-year programme plan, the new and further developed programme "Harnessing Diversity".

Focus in the new "Harnessing Diversity programme" is on capacity development in Latin America, Asia and Africa in respect of local sustainable use of biodiversity and local access to and control over genetic resources; analysis and influence of international policy processes in these areas and analysis and development of alternative agricultural research strategies. The work encompasses organisation support, policy analysis, information production and dissemination, and the establishment of alternative, locally driven agricultural research.

The SwedBio supported programme is organised around two central themes:

• The fight for Rights, focusing on the struggle for the rights of local communties to manage and control biodiversity and traditional knowledge, and against the imposition of monopolistic intellectual property rights.
  
  The work in this area has been drawing attention to the proliferation of the different bilateral free trade agreements and its impact on local communities. GRAIN also continue to monitor the negotiations at the intergovernmental level.

• Agricultural research for whom?, focusing on the need for relevant research for and by farming communities to further sustainable biodiversity based rural livelihoods, and against the push for alien and often destructive technologies such as genetic engineering.
  
  GRAIN has been campaigning both against the top down imposed research and technologies, and working towards 'the positive agenda' which involves strengthening the experiences of groups at the local level with biodiversity based agricultural systems.

In addition, GRAIN's programme includes the production of a number of periodicals, such as 'Seedling', 'Biodiversidad' and 'Semences de la Biodiversité', as well as policy briefings and ad hoc commentaries. All of these, and many other materials and information about GRAIN, can be found on GRAIN's website.