12/28/2022 0 Comments Doomsday vault 60![]() The need for proper safety duplication of the world's unique crop genetic resources is therefore an important international priority,. ![]() Precarious funding, in combination with less than perfect collaboration and coordination among genebanks, has called into question the ability of many of these facilities to ensure long-term conservation, and genetic erosion inside genebanks has become a major concern. While the initial focus was on establishing a small number of genebanks with a global mandate, the FAO currently reports that there are 1750 genebanks around the world. In the early 1970s, other hallmark conferences laid out practical action plans for the FAO and the Consultative Group on Agricultural Research (CGIAR) to establish an international network of conservation activities and genebanks. Harlan was among the first to sound the alarm on genetic erosion of crop genetic resources, and, in 1967, a conference in the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) initiated what has become the genetic resources movement. In the 1930s, the barley breeder Harry V. ![]() The two-fold rationale for genebanks is, on the one hand, to conserve diversity that is threatened in-situ (in farmers' fields or in the wild) and, on the other hand, to make genetic resources accessible to users. Crops producing seeds that can be conserved at low relative humidity and low temperature (orthodox seeds) are now commonly conserved ex-situ in genebanks. In the 1920s the Russian geneticist and botanist Nicolai Vavilov started systematically collecting and conserving genetic diversity as a resource for crop breeding, making ex-situ (off-site) conservation part of the agricultural R&D system. The use of genetic diversity to adapt crops to human needs is as old as the Neolithic revolution. This does not alter the authors‚ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. Both NordGen and The Global Crop Diversity Trust are nonprofit organizations involved in the administration of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. LG is an employee of The Global Crop Diversity Trust. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.įunding: The authors have no support or funding to report.Ĭompeting interests: OTW and SJ are employees of Nordic Genetic Resource Centre (NordGen). Received: JanuAccepted: ApPublished: May 9, 2013Ĭopyright: © 2013 Westengen et al. PLoS ONE 8(5):Įditor: Wengui Yan, National Rice Research Center, United States of America As a back-up site for the global conservation system, the Seed Vault plays not only a practical but also a symbolic role for enhanced integration and cooperation for conservation of crop diversity.Ĭitation: Westengen OT, Jeppson S, Guarino L (2013) Global Ex-Situ Crop Diversity Conservation and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault: Assessing the Current Status. ![]() The high coverage of ITPGRFA Annex 1 crops and of those crops for which there is a CGIAR mandate in the current Seed Vault collection indicates that existence of international policies and institutions are important determinants for accessions to be safety duplicated at Svalbard. In the 29 food-crop genera with the largest number of accessions stored globally, an average of 5.5 out of the ten largest collections is already represented in the Seed Vault collection or is covered by existing deposit agreements. The number of accessions conserved globally generally reflects importance for food production, but there are significant gaps in the safety collection at Svalbard in some genera of high importance for food security in tropical countries, such as Amaranthus (amaranth), Chenopodium (quinoa), Eragrostis (teff) and Abelmoschus (okra). The numbers of safety duplicates of Triticum (wheat), Sorghum (sorghum), Pennisetum (pearl millet), Eleusine (finger millet), Cicer (chickpea) and Lens (lentil) exceed 50% of the estimated numbers of distinct accessions in global ex-situ collections. We estimate that more than one third of the globally distinct accessions of 156 crop genera stored in genebanks as orthodox seeds are conserved in the Seed Vault. Currently, 774,601 samples are deposited at Svalbard by 53 genebanks. We assess the completeness of the safety duplication collection in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault with respect to data on the world's ex-situ collections as reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Ex-situ conservation of crop diversity is a global concern, and the development of an efficient and sustainable conservation system is a historic priority recognized in international law and policy. ![]()
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