The document discusses the establishment and goals of the Crop Trust, an organization founded in 2004 to promote the long-term conservation of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA). It notes challenges facing ex situ conservation like duplication and lack of resources, and opportunities like regional networks and new technologies. The Crop Trust is working to develop a rational global system through strategies for individual crops, regeneration of unique accessions, and safety backups in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Its vision is a tiered system with active collections, long-term genebanks, and the Seed Vault providing safety. Information systems will also be key to linking collections globally.

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