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Part I. Discussion and Recommendations
Introduction
EUROPEAN CENTRAL FORAGES DATABASES 1
Welcoming Address
Eva Thörn, director of the Nordic Gene Bank (NGB), welcomed the participants to the
beautiful country of Norway. She said that it was a pleasure for the Nordic Gene Bank to be
associated with the organization of the meeting. NGB as a regional genebank strongly
supports the regional work of IPGRI and is willing to do what it can to strengthen and widen
the network. NGB, a common institute for Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden,
has almost 20 years of experience in regional activities. The aim of the genebank is to
conserve material of Nordic origin and of importance to agriculture and horticulture and to
promote the utilization of the conserved material. The concept is based on close collaboration
with Nordic plant breeders and researchers organized in crop-related working groups. These
people are supporting the staff with expertise and practical work with the conserved
material. Eva Thörn stressed the importance of the people in their own working groups as
well as the participants in the ECP/GR network. She said that although the participants are
spread all over Europe in different environments and different organizations, all have a
common task and a common goal: to conserve plant genetic resources for food and
agriculture for future needs and to see that the conserved material will be used in a
sustainable manner for future generations. She encouraged the participants to bring back all
the commitments and recommendations which will be made during the meeting to their
colleagues as well as to policy-makers, and to encourage plant breeders to actively take part
in the important work of conservation and utilization of plant genetic resources (PGR) in a
sustainable way. She underlined the importance of a good system for information and
documentation designed according to the needs of the users of PGR. She also said that it
must be kept in mind that PGR as such have no value until they are used by someone for a
specific reason. She expressed her sincere hope that the world community will be able to
make such agreements that plant genetic resources will be freely available and preferably
also free of charge in the future and stressed that all participants could contribute to that
process. Finally she wished the participants interesting and fruitful discussions during their
stay in Norway.
Presentation of participants
Petter Marum welcomed the members attending and those corresponding to the Forages
Working Group meeting for the first time. He asked all the participants to briefly introduce
themselves. The apologies of Vincent Connolly from Ireland, who was not able to attend,
were transmitted to the Group. It was noted that many contributions were received from
other members unable to attend.
Information on ECP/GR
Lorenzo Maggioni introduced himself as the new ECP/GR Coordinator. He welcomed the
participants on behalf of IPGRI and thanked P. Marum for the excellent organization of the
meeting. He also thanked E. Thörn for her encouraging and appropriate opening words, and
then informed the participants, a number of whom were present for the first time at an
ECP/GR meeting, of the changes in the structure and mode of operation of the Programme,
as decided in the meeting of the Technical Consultative Committee (TCC) in Nitra, Slovakia,
in September 1995. He described the new structure of the Programme which is composed of
crop-specific networks and thematic networks and illustrated the type of activities carried
out within each of these. He summarized the most recent ECP/GR events, such as the
Documentation meeting in Budapest (October 1996) and the participation of non-EU