At the GFAR SC meeting in Beijing, in May 1999, a discussion paper1 was presented to the steering committee on the establishment of Global Programmes for Commodity Chains. The term « Commodity Chains » was used to define, in positive terms, these crops which were not formally covered by the « CGIAR Mandate »
These crops represent one of the five priority areas identified by the GFAR SC in May 1998, and the purpose of the discussion was to propose possible ways to foster new partnerships for the commodity chains through the establishment of global programmes.
As a result of the discussion at the Beijing meeting, the GFAR SC commissioned IPGRI to further study the feasibility of establishing global programmes, following the approach proposed in the paper. The SC also suggested building on existing initiatives, and to seek expressions of interest, for the construction of these global programmes