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At the international level, a number of global instruments provide mechanisms to facilitate addressing today's challenges. Two of which are the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (IT-PGRFA) and it's supporting component, the Global Plan of Action for the Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (Global Plan of Action), which was adopted by the Pacific Island Countries along with other members of the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA) in 1996 through the Leipzig Declaration.

Conservation and management of broad-based genetic diversity has been supporting the improvement of agriculture for 10,000 years.It is this broad base of diversity that has enabled agriculture to sustain increasing populations over the years. At the same time, this diversity has provided resilience within agricultural ecosystems, so they have the capacity to recover from environmental stress and to evolve