CBD COP17: Why digital genetic data debate matters to India’s farmers and researchers

At its core, DSI is the digital version of genetic material. In high school biology, we study genetic sequences made of DNA and RNA, represented by a string of letters like A, T, C, and G. We are talking about the same here. These sequences form genes, which determine specific traits in a plant, animal, or microorganism.

While you can write a sequence down on paper, DSI refers to storing and processing that data on computers. When researchers take a sample, say, a plant extract, and process it through modern sequencers, it generates digital sequence information. That data can then be saved, analysed, shared globally, and collaborated entirely digitally. Research can also be done in digital simulation format. 

Historically, under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Nagoya Protocol, Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) applied to physical genetic resources. If a scientist received seeds from a farmer, they signed a Material Transfer Agreement (MTA). This contract sets clear conditions: perhaps the community gets free access to improved varieties, collaborates and participates in research and product development  and, sometimes, even gets a share of future commercial profits.

DSI disrupted this framework. Instead of requesting physical seeds, researchers can simply download the sequence data anonymously from an online database, bypassing agreements with local providers entirely.

 Unfortunately, the CBD COPs did not find a solution to this problem. At COP15, a multilateral mechanism was established that could provide monetary benefits to providers, such as farmers and other communities. However, without a binding obligation to share benefits, it looks more like charity. Large commercial DSI users who meet certain revenue and profit thresholds are expected to contribute funds to the newly created Cali Fund. In turn, 50% of this fund is earmarked for indigenous peoples and local communities, distributed according to national laws. 

However, this parallel system side-steps the root problem: anonymous, unregulated access to DSI that continues to disconnect the direct relationship between users and providers and undermines communities' ability to determine access conditions to their resources and opens the door to biopiracy.

For instance, a farmer sharing seeds with a scientist could ask to receive the improved variety once it is developed, or seek a share of the profits if it is sold commercially. The farmer could also insist that a new variety should not be released in a way that threatens existing crops. These are the kinds of conditions that benefit-sharing agreements can establish.

It creates major vulnerabilities on several fronts: A local scientist might collaborate with an indigenous community to identify a wild crop relative with valuable traits. To publish their findings, academic standards require uploading the gene sequence to a public database. Once uploaded, foreign institutions or commercial entities can take that data without obligation to include the original scientist in further research. Local scientists end up acting as mere "data scouts" rather than equal research partners.

Communities that conserve and protect rare plants, often for generations, lose control over their traditional resources and knowledge. Once digitised, that genetic data can be commercialised by global pharmaceutical or cosmetic firms without the community’s knowledge or consent.

Over 70% of cancer drug research involves natural compounds. When developed using DSI, companies patent the resulting therapies, price them at premium rates, and market them primarily in wealthy nations. The source country’s citizens, who provided the underlying biodiversity, are often priced out of life-saving medicine. 

Cali Fund cannot substitute for affordable access to the products developed. If a medicine remains expensive or is sold primarily in wealthier markets, the country and community associated with the original resource may still be unable to benefit. Governments may then have to spend public money to purchase medicines that were developed using genetic information originating from their own biodiversity.

For agriculture, developing and releasing new crop varieties without local farmer participation risks introducing poorly evaluated strains or causing biocontamination in existing farmland.

Local industries also face risk. For instance, India’s Strategic Roadmap for Making Ayurveda Global identifies biopiracy as a threat in the context of emerging overseas manufacturing of Ayurvedic supplements and formulations. Moreover, historically, the overseas markets often use Indian medicinal plants and extracts as generic ingredients in supplements, cosmetics and other products, rather than a finished ayurvedic product. DSI can be used to synthesise these compounds, and this may further affect local industries  

As it stands, the fund offers very little practical benefit, primarily for two reasons:

First, contributions are largely voluntary, meaning there is zero financial certainty. While projections estimated the fund could generate up to USD 3 billion annually, only around USD 6,000 to USD 10,000 was collected over its first two years. Without mandatory legal obligations, corporations simply will not pay.

Second, the mechanism lacks transparency around non-monetary benefits, such as technology transfer, joint Research and development (R&D), or affordable access to end products like seeds and medicines. Rather than depending on charity from a distant fund, countries like India should develop their own secure, open-science data infrastructure and promote local R&D and entrepreneurship. Open science should mean non-discriminatory access for legitimate researchers, not unregulated and anonymous extraction of information.

Genetic information should remain accessible to legitimate researchers without discrimination, but that does not mean researchers  should be able to exploit the data without appropriate accountability. Open Access to databases controlled elsewhere is not necessarily guaranteed in the long term, since those controlling the infrastructure can change the terms of access, they can also start charging.

Direct access should not mean waiting for money to trickle down from the end of a global corporate supply chain. Instead, it should involve direct upstream collaboration. When outside entities want access to local resources, they should directly engage with local communities and researchers from day one.

Under current Cali Fund framework agreements, entities receiving direct funding must accept intrusive conditions, including giving donors open access to their premises and records. This reverses the dynamic: instead of providers setting terms for users, foreign donors impose terms on local communities. Unless direct access genuinely empowers communities without strings attached, governments need strong regulatory oversight to protect national interests and prevent resource exploitation.

Just like intellectual property debates at the World Trade Organization, ABS is fundamentally an issue of political economy: who controls the resource, and who profits from it? DSI negotiations are only the latest phase of the broader ABS debates, in which value is increasingly detached from the biological resources from which it originates and traditional knowledge associated with them. With emerging technologies, we may soon face another phase of this process, in which values are further detached from the naturally occurring genetic sequences through the use of AI tools to generate synthetic sequences.

Corporations seek monopoly protection through patents and intellectual property rights, while simultaneously demanding free, unrestricted access to the raw genetic data. Global North lobbies have spent years persuading all governments that any access regulation – such as Prior Informed Consent or data agreements – would stifle scientific research and innovation.

Some of these networks work by building relationships with influential research institutions and researchers who have close links to governments and bureaucracies. Through such partnerships, they can help forge opposition to national regulations and ABS laws. 

Studies record inherent and systemic bias against ABS in the academic and scientific circles. So when the negotiations are framed in a manner that even modest regulatory change like user registration in databases would hinder science and innovation, even governments hesitate to take firm positions to protect the States’ sovereign rights and the rights of people over genetic resources. 

The Precautionary principle is nowadays reversed. Rather than applying precaution to the potential risks that scientific and commercial activities pose to the environment, it is increasingly invoked to warn against the supposed risks that environmental regulations pose to science and enterprise.

The global DSI sharing infrastructure is dominated by three major institutions: the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), and Japan’s DNA Data Bank (DDBJ). Together, they manage the primary databases where genetic sequence information from across the world is stored and accessed. This concentration of control raises concerns about who sets the rules for accessing and using the data and whether biodiversity-rich developing countries can ensure that benefits from the commercial use of their genetic resources are shared fairly.

Substantive breakthroughs are unlikely at COP 17, as formal review processes are slated to continue into COP 18.

The primary danger to watch for is the Global North attempting to legitimise anonymous, unrestricted access under the guise of "open access". Some developed countries are even arguing that providing access to DSI is itself a form of non-monetary benefit-sharing.

Civil society and Global South governments must push back against this narrative. Regulating data access is not about halting scientific research; it is about establishing clear data governance where source countries and local communities have a meaningful say over how their genetic heritage is used and shared.