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

Q. Global South countries like India hold vast biodiversity. What does the Cali Fund mean for these countries, and will it genuinely help them?

A. 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.

Q. Ideally, how should direct benefit-sharing reach grassroots farmers or remote researchers?

A. 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.

Q. Why have negotiations around DSI become so contentious? What is stalling a fair solution?

A. 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.

Q. When you refer to the Global North controlling this infrastructure, which countries and institutions are actually holding the data?

A. 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.

Q. Looking ahead to COP 17, what key decisions must be made to make DSI benefit-sharing fair, and what do you realistically expect?

A. 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.

This story was produced as part of the 2026 CBD COP17 Fellowship, operated by Informed Earth in collaboration with Internews’ Earth Journalism Network.

This interview was first published by The News Minute. Become a joint subscriber here.