Acta Horticulturae

More documents

Recommendations

Info

ISSUES Conserving Plant Genetic Resources: Imperative and Opportunity Cary Fowler GENETIC RESOURCE COLLECTIONS It would be our good fortune if the many efforts of international institutions, national governments, private companies and civil society organizations resulted in a coherent, efficient, effective and sustainable system for conserving plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, the world’s most valuable living resource. To date, they have not. Concerted, global organized efforts to conserve crop genetic resources began in the early 1970s. From that point, accessions in ex-situ facilities increased from several hundred thousand to 6.5 million housed in more than a thousand separate collections today. Despite the dramatic upswing both in the number of institutions involved and the number of accessions “conserved,” relatively few countries/institutions have genebanks that meet international standards for long-term conservation, and even fewer are adequately or securely funded. Even countries that boast excellent facilities are, in a very real sense, dependent on countries with less than adequate storage facilities, simply Counting pre-fixed amounts of seed fo each conservation purpose. Photograph by courtesy of CIAT. Checking the germination using trays with river sand. Photograph by courtesy of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). because no country, no matter how large its collection, possesses more than a fraction of the total. Australia, a major wheat producing country with excellent facilities and world-class breeding programs, maintains only 3% of the total number of wheat samples stored in genebanks. Virtually every country in the world is dependent on crops that originated outside their borders (Palacios, 1998) and on the conservation of genetic resources by and access from other countries (Fowler et al., 2001). The best collected and conserved crops in the world are undoubtedly the major cereals: wheat, rice, and maize. Not only are many samples conserved in genebanks - 789,000 accessions of wheat, 420,000 accessions of rice and 262,000 accessions of maize (FAO, 1998) - but three independent studies have all concluded that a high proportion of extant genetic diversity in these crops - approximately 95% - has been collected and conserved (Fowler and Hodgkin, 2004). The same cannot be said for horticultural crops, where collections are smaller and the proportion of the genepool conserved is likely much smaller. Despite their rela- ISHS • 16
Keeping the seed jars in the temporary storage cold room. Photograph by courtesy of CIAT. tively smaller size and coverage, these collections are still extremely important. They are the main source of breeding materials for the crops. And, it should not be overlooked that these genebank collections contain a considerable number of landraces (heirloom or farmers’ varieties) that can no longer be found anywhere outside of genebanks. While 150 crops have entered into world commerce, for only 72 crops are there genebank collections containing a thousand or more accessions. Only 16 crops have individual collections of 5000 accessions or more. About 80% of the total number of accessions housed in genebanks are of these crops. The remaining 20% is devoted to the remaining hundreds of crops (Padulosi et al., 2002). The small size of some of these collections indicates that constraints may exist, now or in the future, to breeding programs. Interestingly, however, many crops - most of the African leafy vegetables, for example - have probably never benefited from Mendelian-based crop improvement efforts at any point between Neolithic times and the present. This situation demonstrates that care must be taken to conserve the collections that do exist, as they will inevitably constitute the foundation of any future research and breeding programs. It also hints at the tremendous potential and value of crops and crop collections, if only the opportunity were seized. Despite the size differences, collections of major cereal grains, fruit and horticultural crops share a common predicament. All are conserved without benefit of secure, long-term funding. Moreover, no real system exists to coordinate, oversee or monitor conservation. And, until recently, there has been no serious attempt to assess global collections, identify redundancies between collections and gaps within collections at the global level. INTERNATIONAL TREATY ON PLANT GENETIC RESOURCES With the coming into force of the new International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources and the establishment of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, it now becomes imaginable and feasible to correct this situation. The International Treaty provides for “facilitated access” to plant genetic resources of approximately 35 specified crops and crop complexes and a number of (mostly temperate) forage species. The crops include: breadfruit, asparagus, oat, beet, Brassica complex, pigeon pea, chickpea, citrus, coconut, major aroids, carrot, yams, finger millet, strawberry, sunflower, barley, sweet potato, grass pea, lentil, apple, cassava, banana/plantain, rice, pearl millet, beans (Phaseolus), pea, rye, potato, eggplant, sorghum, wheat/triticale, faba bean, vetch, cowpea (Vigna), and maize. Genetic resources of these crops will be available through a standard Material Transfer Agreement due to be approved when Parties to the Treaty (97 countries as of 20 March) meet for the first time in Madrid in June 2006. The Treaty’s multilateral approach reverses the 20 year trend of increasing restrictiveness by countries to access of genetic resources. It is expected that Centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research will sign agreements with the Governing Body bringing the 500,000 accessions they conserve within the framework of the Treaty. The Treaty’s Material Transfer Agreement will prohibit a recipient of germplasm from the multilateral system from taking out intellectual property rights on the material “in the form received.” It will not, however, prevent the application of intellectual property rights to products based on those genetic materials. The idea is that access should be facilitated but in such a way as to ensure that the genetic resources remain in the “public domain” available for use by others in the future. The Treaty, with its international legal guarantees of access, allows for the development, at the global level, for a more efficient, effective and rational system of conservation, precisely because it mitigates the need for each country to hold large collections. As long as genetic resources are available from the system, individual genebanks need not worry about collecting and maintaining everything. FAO lists some 1400 collections of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture in its global database. Relatively few - perhaps only 5% - can provide reliable long-term storage under conditions meeting international standards. The Treaty provides the legal framework within which collection holders might work together to ensure that distinct accessions are safely conserved in facilities that are capable of doing that job. Whether the opportunity is realized is another matter, dependent as it is both on planning, funding and implementation. The in vitro cassava genebank at CIAT: 5,941 cassava clones from 23 countries. Photograph by courtesy of CIAT. CHRONICA HORTICULTURAE •VOL 46 • NUMBER 3 • 2006 • 17
Page 1 and 2: Chronica HORTICULTURAE Volume 46 -
Page 3 and 4: NEWS FROM THE BOARD An Exercise in
Page 5 and 6: esearch led to new technologies for
Page 7 and 8: on Asian Plants in 2002. Dr. Lee ha
Page 9 and 10: The ISHS General Assembly in Seoul
Page 11 and 12: Committee and Council agreed to add
Page 13 and 14: group of small countries to join to
Page 15: CTA and ISHS Sign Major Accord The
Page 19 and 20: Global Conservation Strategy for St
Page 21 and 22: Unlike the dwarfing brought about b
Page 23 and 24: Table 2. Commercially available clo
Page 25 and 26: One of the most difficult problems
Page 27 and 28: HORTICULTURAL SCIENCE NEWS Diversif
Page 29 and 30: Figure 2. Maize and red beets at ge
Page 31 and 32: higher value crops such as vegetabl
Page 33 and 34: Figure 3. Elite walnut selections f
Page 35 and 36: approaches. The topics include frui
Page 37 and 38: This symposium was held in Mexico C
Page 39 and 40: Symposium organisers and invited sp
Page 41 and 42: Loquat Mingle Demonstrating Orchard
Page 43 and 44: strategies could be determined and
Page 45 and 46: Commission Horticultural Engineerin
Page 47 and 48: Commission Plant Substrates - First
Page 49 and 50: Azura packing station. ❚ More att
Page 51 and 52: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Acknowledgements a
Page 53 and 54: 1850-1854, and their Forgeries. His
Page 55 and 56: NEW peyanoot@hotmail.com or royalfl

Acta Horticulturae

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?