Access and Benefit Sharing under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 tries to turn biodiversity into a conservation resource. Examine how effective it has been, with reference to recent disbursements to the agriculture sector.

Under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) makes commercial users of biological resources pay for their conservation. In October 2026, the NBA paid Rs 1.19 crore from seed-company contributions to 29 State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs) and one UT Biodiversity Council [1]. This shows ABS can raise money, but the money only partly reaches the people who actually conserve these resources.

Effectiveness: where ABS works

• Growing revenue: total NBA disbursals now exceed Rs 203 crore. Rs 86 crore (about 42%) of this came from agriculture [1].
• "User pays" in practice: seed firms such as Corteva, Syngenta and Limagrain paid for their research and commercial use of maize, rice, pearl millet and cotton [1].
• Rule-based allocation: the seed was bought through traders, so no individual claimers could be traced. Funds were therefore shared in proportion to each State's cultivation area, using UPAg data and a formula from an Expert Committee [1].
• Earmarked use: the money can be spent only under Section 32(2), on documentation, conservation, research and livelihoods [1].

Limitations

• Money stops at the SBB: the farmers who kept these crop lines alive receive no visible benefit [1].
• Amounts too small: the 20 bodies outside the top 10 shared Rs 21.87 lakh, about Rs 1.1 lakh each. That is too little to fund meaningful work [1].
• Wrong proxy: the area formula rewards big commercial hybrid belts (Maharashtra got Rs 19.46 lakh) rather than remote areas that preserve landraces (traditional local varieties) [1].
• Weak community voice: under the 2021 Amendment Bill, the NBA represents BMCs (village-level biodiversity committees) when benefit terms are set. The Bill also has no prior-informed-consent step, even though Nagoya Articles 6(2) and 7 require one [2].
• Possible dilution: the Bill exempts "codified traditional knowledge" without defining it. This could exempt knowledge already recorded in People's Biodiversity Registers [2].

Way forward

• Seed firms should be required to declare where their parent lines came from, so benefits can be traced to a specific area.
• Part of each tranche should be allocated by landrace diversity recorded in each State's Biodiversity Registers, not by cultivation area alone.
• The Rules should define "codified traditional knowledge" narrowly, and SBBs should consult BMCs before benefit agreements are signed.

Overall, ABS has become a reliable conservation fund, and agriculture is now one of its largest sources. Better traceability and routing benefits to BMCs would let it reward actual conservers. That would honour Nagoya's promise of fair sharing and advance SDG 15, a record India can present at CBD COP 17 [1].