1. Pre-breeding in a rational global
system for ex situ conservation
http://croptrust.org

2. International imperatives
• GPA calls on countries to:
 “develop an efficient goal-oriented, economically efficient and
sustainable system of ex situ conservation”
• ITPGRFA calls on Parties to:
 “cooperate to promote the development of an efficient and
sustainable system of ex situ conservation”

3. Birth of the Trust
• Established under international law Oct. 2004
• Jointly founded by FAO and Bioversity (on behalf of
CGIAR)
• Endowment fund target currently $260 million
 Fund at $80 mill  long-term grants ($1.8 mill/year)
 + project funds (e.g. Gates Foundation)
• Essential element of funding strategy of ITPGRFA
• Technical framework is Global Plan of Action

4. The vision
A rational global system
for the efficient and effective
ex situ conservation and use
of PGRFA

5. The State of the World - Challenges
• A lot of duplication
 A lot of un-duplicated accessions
• Lack of resources
 Inadequate equipment, facilities for storage
• Material dying
• Little international distribution from many
collections

6. The State of the World - Pressures
• Collecting in face of climate change etc.
 Especially CWR (only 10% of holdings)
• Demand for impact (i.e. use)
 Decline of public sector plant breeding
• Interest in underutilized crops
• More, better access to data and germplasm
• More, better data

7. The State of the World - Opportunities
• Regional and crop networks
• CGIAR Centres
• ITPGRFA
• Tools
 Biotech
 GIS

8. A possible solution
The present The future?

9. Conservation Svalbard Global Seed Vault
Safety backup
Long term collection: CG Centres etc.
Active national collection
Breeding/working collection
Use Farmers

10. Towards a rational system
• Finished strategies
 Banana, barley, breadfruit, cassava, chickpea, coconut,
faba beans, grass pea, lentil, maize, oats, pigeon pea,
potato, rice, sorghum, strawberry, sweet potato, taro,
wheat (+triticale, rye).
• Next
 Beans, cowpea, finger millet, pearl millet, yam.
• All regional strategies done
 Via regional PGR networks
- AEGIS

11. Towards a rational system
• Regeneration of unique, local, threatened material
 21 Annex 1 crops, >200 collections, 80,000 accessions
 identified by expert consultations, regional/crop strategies, regional
networks
 safety duplication
• Safety back-up at Svalbard International Seed Vault
 from the regenerations of seed crops
 in-trust international seed collections

12. Total no. of Total no. of
Crop
collections accessions
aroids 10 1,509
bambara groundnut 3 227
banana 11 1,412
barley 18 6,362
bean 24 7,291
cassava 5 1,180
chickpea 14 4,183
cowpea 24 5,098
faba bean 14 2,400
finger millet 8 9,927
grasspea 10 3,952
lentil 16 3,728
maize 33 12,803
pearl millet 10 2,751
pigeon pea 3 888
potato 6 4,621
rice 14 16,435
sorghum 24 14,266
sweet potato 9 1,731
wheat 23 26,304
yam 14 3,270

13. Svalbard, Norway
78° North, 15°East

14. Towards a rational system
• Information systems
 data management system for genebanks
- GRIN-Global
 global accession-level information system
- SINGER, EURISCO, GRIN, ++++

15. The future of genebanks
• Outsource some storage/distribution functions
• Collaborate on genotyping
• Focus on phenotyping (networks?)
• Share data
• Become users
 Need more than just “better links” to users!
• “Crown jewels” are not the accessions but the
products

16. The future of genebanks
• Re-tooling
• Re-training
• Re-thinking

17. Thank you
http://croptrust.org