Germplasm Acquisition and Distribution by CGIAR Genebanks.

Nicolas Roux,Charlotte Lusty,Marimagne Tchamba,Luigi Guarino,Ramaiah Venuprasad,Edwin Rojas,Marie-Noelle Ndjiondjop,Noelle Anglin,Michael Halewood,Chris Jones,Nelissa Jamora,Alice Muchugi,Vania Azevedo,P Kumar,Thomas Payne,Mariana Yazbek,Isabel Noriega,Peter Wenzl

doi:10.3390/plants9101296

Abstract

The international collections of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) hosted by 11 CGIAR Centers are important components of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s global system of conservation and use of PGRFA. They also play an important supportive role in realizing Target 2.5 of the Sustainable Development Goals. This paper analyzes CGIAR genebanks’ trends in acquiring and distributing PGRFA over the last 35 years, with a particular focus on the last decade. The paper highlights a number of factors influencing the Centers’ acquisition of new PGRFA to include in the international collections, including increased capacity to analyze gaps in those collections and precisely target new collecting missions, availability of financial resources, and the state of international and national access and benefit-sharing laws and phytosanitary regulations. Factors contributing to Centers’ distributions of PGRFA included the extent of accession-level information, users’ capacity to identify the materials they want, and policies. The genebanks’ rates of both acquisition and distribution increased over the last decade. The paper ends on a cautionary note concerning the potential of unresolved tensions regarding access and benefit sharing and digital genomic sequence information to undermine international cooperation to conserve and use PGRFA.

Highlights

Over the last three decades, under the auspices of the United Nations (UN) Food and AgricultureOrganization (FAO), the international community has repeatedly committed itself to developing and maintaining a global system on plant genetic resources for food and agriculture
It is important to underscore that this paper focuses almost exclusively on acquisitions and distributions of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) by the CGIAR Centers’ genebanks, and not by the Centers’ breeding programs
Over the course of the decade 2010–2019, the CGIAR Center genebanks received a surge of PGRFA from providers around the world, with permission to make those materials available through the Plant Treaty’s multilateral system of access and benefit sharing

Summary

Introduction

This global system includes specialized international bodies that monitor the status of the conservation and use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA), develop normative instruments when necessary, and support the implementation and use of those instruments. “[n]umber of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture secured in medium or long term conservation facilities” (http://www.fao.org/sustainable-development-goals/indicators/251a/en/) Through their management of international PGRFA collections, the CGIAR Centers make important contributions to both the global system and SDG Target 2.5. Their contributions include assembling and conserving PGRFA, adding value to those materials through extensive characterization, evaluation, documentation, and health testing, and supplying samples that are free of quarantine pests and diseases to researchers, plant breeders, farmers, national and community genebanks, and seed companies around the world. The international collections hosted by the CGIAR Centers include over 760,000 accessions of crops, forages, and trees that were originally obtained from 207 countries, as well as pre-bred materials.

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