High in the cloud forests of Madagascar, wild coffee trees cling to the slopes of misty hills. These ancient plants – some on the brink of extinction – hold the genetic keys to our morning rituals, global economies, and the resilience of coffee in a changing climate. But as science races to tap into this genetic goldmine, a crucial question lingers: who owns nature’s blueprint – and who gets to benefit?

At the heart of this question lies a little-known yet powerful legal framework: the Nagoya Protocol. For the global coffee community, from smallholder farmers in Africa to roasters in Europe and geneticists in Latin America, understanding this agreement is no longer optional – it is essential for the survival, sustainability, and sovereignty of coffee itself.

What Is the Nagoya Protocol?

Adopted in 2010 and in force since 2014, the Nagoya Protocol is an international agreement under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). It governs how genetic resources – like the DNA of coffee trees – are accessed and how the benefits arising from their use are shared fairly and equitably with the countries and communities that provide them.

The principle is simple: if a company, researcher, or institution wants to use a plant’s genetic material from another country, they must first obtain Prior Informed Consent (PIC) and negotiate Mutually Agreed Terms (MAT) for benefit-sharing – financial or otherwise.

But applying these principles in the real world is anything but simple.

Coffee and the Protocol: A Complicated Relationship

Coffee – especially wild and landrace species like Coffea liberica, C. racemosa, or C. stenophylla – is native to a few tropical countries but enjoyed globally. Its genetic diversity is essential for breeding varieties that resist disease, tolerate heat, or produce extraordinary flavour profiles. However, most of these wild relatives are conserved in national genebanks or natural habitats that fall under sovereign jurisdiction.

Yet, unlike crops such as wheat or rice, coffee is not included in the Multilateral System (MLS) of the FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). This exclusion means coffee is subject to bilateral ABS agreements under the Nagoya Protocol – a regulatory maze that many institutions are still struggling to navigate.

Bottlenecks in Conservation and Exchange

According to a comprehensive 2025 survey coordinated by the Crop Trust, the International Coffee Organization (ICO), and other stakeholders, the landscape is riddled with challenges:

• Genebanks lack digitised, publicly available information on accessions.
• Legal procedures to access germplasm are often unclear, slow, and inconsistent, particularly across borders.
• Benefit-sharing mechanisms are unevenly applied – rarely reaching local communities or even the genebanks conserving the material.
• Many users, including public institutions and private companies, lack basic knowledge of ABS laws, obligations, or how to remain compliant.