Background Papers
Plant Genetic Resources and Seed Relief
Toby Hodgkin, Murthi Anishetty
IPGRI,Rome, Italy; FAO, Rome, Italy
1. Introduction
In the modern world, especially in developing countries, people are threatened with, and vulnerable to, natural disasters, civil strife and war. Such calamities present huge challenges to the resilience of agricultural systems where planting, maintenance and harvesting may all be disrupted or prevented altogether. Often, adapted crop varieties are lost and cannot be recuperated locally. This is particularly damaging for the 1.4 billion people who are estimated to live in farm families that are still largely self-provisioning in terms of their planting materials or seeds.
In 1996, over 150 countries adopted the FAO Global Plan of Action for the Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources in Food and Agriculture (FAO, 1996a). The main aims of the Global Plan are:
- to ensure conservation of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture as a basis for food security;
- to promote sustainable utilization of plant genetic resources, in order to foster development and reduce poverty and hunger;
- to promote a fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of plant genetic resources;
- to assist countries and institutions responsible for conserving and using plant genetic resources to identify priorities for action; and,
- to strengthen plant genetic resources programmes and enhance institutional capacity.
The Global Plan recognized the potential value of the world's plant genetic resources in assisting farmers and communities confronting disasters and identified assisting farmers in disaster situations to restore agricultural systems through the use of plant genetic resources as one of its 20 key activities. The long term objective of this activity was described as supporting "farmers' and rural peoples' livelihoods and sustainable agriculture options through the rehabilitation of agricultural systems based on locally adapted genetic resources, including the restoration of pre-existing germplasm in cases of disaster induced loss of plant genetic resources".
Plant genetic resources provide the biological basis of food security. They include commercial plant varieties (both currently available and those developed in the past) as well as traditional local plant varieties that continue to be an integral part of many production systems throughout the developing world. They also include wild and weedy relatives of useful plant species, many of which have provided valuable characters such as disease and pest resistance which are essential elements of modern varieties.
Based on the work of early pioneers such as N.I. Vavilov and Harry Harlan, crop geneticists and plant breeders of the 1950s and 1960s, who were becoming increasingly concerned at the continuing loss of traditional crop varieties and their wild relatives, began a series of initiatives to support the exchange and maintenance of plant genetic resources. A series of meetings and initiatives sponsored by FAO paved the way for the development of a global programme of support for the conservation and use of plant genetic resources and for the development of national programmes in very many countries throughout the world. As a result of this it is now estimated that there are over 1,400 collections of plant genetic resources maintaining over 6 million accessions (an accession is plant sample, strain or population held in a genebank). The collections occur throughout the world and cover a very wide range of crops including cereals, legumes, roots and tubers, vegetables, fruits and industrial crops.
Maintenance of plant genetic resources is undertaken by a range of different national institutions, which include dedicated genetic resources institutes and other national agricultural research centres, and by several international and regional research centres. FAO provides an international framework for addressing key issues of conservation and use of plant genetic resources both through its regular programme and through the Commission on Genetic Resources. The System Wide Genetic Resources Programme (SGRP) of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) coordinates work by international agricultural research institutes. One institute of the CGIAR - the International Plant genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) - is wholly concerned with conservation and use of plant genetic resources (FAO, 1996b).
The activity described in the Global Plan took account of a growing concern to ensure that seed provided following a disaster genuinely meets the needs of the recipients. This concern has also been reflected in a number of actions in different parts of the world where the needs of disaster affected peoples for specific types of seeds have been deliberately addressed. The Seeds of Hope programme in Rwanda, which involved a collaboration between International Agricultural Research Centres (IARCs), NARS and NGOs, monitored varietal diversity in Rwanda with the aim of reintroducing lost local varieties (Sperling, 1995). Studies of ways of meeting varietal needs and the provision of desired local types have been undertaken in W. African rice producing areas affected by war (Richards and Ruivenkamp, 1997), In Somalia a collaboration involving local communities, an NGO and IPGRI sought to make lost local types available to farmers (IPGRI, 1998).
There are two dimensions to the provision of varieties to farmers following some type of disaster. One concerns the identification of needs based on an understanding of production systems and the effect of the disaster, particularly in respect of the material needs of the producers. The other concerns the capacity to meet those needs through the provision of the most suitable planting materials. The first aspect necessarily involves some estimation of what needs to be restored or replaced (demand) while the second aspect is concerned with the material and capacities that exist at local, national or international levels that can be mobilized to meet the identified needs (supply). This paper is largely concerned with the latter aspects - specifically with the plant genetic resources that are available as a result of the global conservation efforts of the last 50 years, how one might be able to identify and use them following disasters, and how their contribution might be maximized. The objective is to explore both the contribution that the materials themselves may make and to consider the ways in which the methods and approaches developed for conservation of plant genetic resources may be useful.
In the first part of this paper we draw on the FAO Report on the State of the Worlds Plant Genetic Resources (FAO, 1996b) to describe the materials that are conserved as plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, their characteristics, the procedures that are used for their maintenance and the types of information that may be available on the resources conserved. The types of institutions that are involved in maintaining plant genetic resources are also described. In the second part of the paper we explore some of the factors involved in making these resources available for relief following various types of disasters. The concern is primarily with technical issues involved in identifying the most useful sources of information, the institutions that may be able to provide materials of relevant information and the ways in which useful materials could be located. In the final section we identify some issues involved in developing improved systems and capacities.
2. The conserved resources
Over the last 40 years there has been a substantial replacement of the traditional varieties of the worlds' major staple crops (e.g. wheat, rice, corn, sorghum and major pulses) with new improved varieties produced as part of national or international publicly or privately funded plant breeding programmes. It is now estimated that over 80% of the area of developing world bread wheat production is sown to modern varieties (CIMMYT, 1996). However, this global figure masks substantial regional and national or local differences; while the area sown to modern varieties in South Asia is over 90% that in West Asia is only 53%. The situation is similar for rice, with 74% of the total Asian area planted to modern varieties, although in Cambodia only 11% of the area is sown to modern varieties, while in Malaysia the coverage is 90%. In contrast to rice and bread wheat, modern varieties still account for less than 50% of the production of pearl millet, even in countries such as India where substantial breeding is in progress. In some African countries the reliance on traditional varieties remains very high for a number of staple crops such as millet, sorghum and rice.
A major concern of plant genetic resources conservation programmes is to ensure that the genetic diversity present in local varieties is maintained for use in future breeding programmes. It has always been recognized that they contain many valuable characters (e.g. disease and pest resistance, stress tolerance) and constitute a vital resource for future crop improvement work. The emphasis of early work was on collecting and maintaining these materials and in establishing national or regional genebanks concerned with their maintenance and distribution. As a result of this, there are now very substantial collections of many crop species. Procedures for their optimum maintenance over long periods have been developed together with information management systems to keep track of the materials and of their attributes. Distribution problems have been tackled and countries have developed a range of approaches to ensure that work within a country is adequately managed and makes the best possible contribution to national needs.
Most of the work of national programmes on conservation of crop plant genetic resources is concerned with ex situ conservation. However, while ex situ conservation provides an essential national and global resource, much diversity continues to be found in the production system itself. The earlier view that new improved varieties will always rapidly replaced traditional ones is now seen to be oversimplified and often unfounded. There appear to be many situations and circumstances where farmers continue to maintain and use traditional varieties because these best meet their current needs. From the conservation perspective, it is therefore clear that the maintenance of diversity in production systems (conservation through use) should continue to be a key element in the global conservation effort together with deliberate and planned actions to conserve genetic resources ex situ (conservation for use). In the context of response to disaster situations, both ex situ conserved resources and local varieties maintained in situ by farmers in traditional farming systems, may be important in the provision of variety sensitive seed relief.
2.1 Materials conserved
The number of genebanks has grown rapidly since the early 1970s, when there were fewer than ten, holding perhaps no more than a half million accessions. A total of more than 1,400 collections are now recorded in FAO's World Information and Early Warning System on Plant Genetic Resources (WIEWS) database. Based on this database, and information provided in Country Reports prepared for FAO, approximately 6.1 million accessions are stored worldwide in ex situ germplasm collections, including approximately 527 000 accessions stored in field genebanks. Some very large national collections exist (Table 1) but often the collections are much smaller consisting of only a few hundred or thousand accessions of specific crops. One of the largest groups of collections is that maintained by the IARCs of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). There are now over 600,000 accessions of major food and forage crops (Table 2) in these collections which have been designated as part of the International Network of Base Collections under the Auspices of FAO.
Table 1: Ex situ conservation in some of the world's largest national base collections (from FAO, 1996b)
Country and Institute
Accessions
Facilities
China: Institute of Crop Germplasm
300,000
Long-term storage, space available
USA: National Seed Storage Laboratory
268,000
Long-term storage, capacity of 1,000,000 accessions
Russia: VIR
177,680
No long-term facilities
Japan: NIAR
146,091
Long-term facilities
India: NBPGR
144,109
New genebank built for 600,000 accessions
Korea, Republic of: RDA
115,639
Long-term facilities, total capacity 200,000 accessions
Canada: PGRC
100,000
Long-term facilities
Germany: IPK (Institute for Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research), Gatersleben
103,000
Long-term facilities
Brazil: CENARGEN
60,000
Long-term facilities, capacity for 100,000 accessions
Germany: FAO, Braunschweig
57,000
Long-term facilities
Italy: Bari
55,806
Long-term facilities
Ethiopia: Biodiversity Institute
54,000
Long-term facilities
Hungary: Institute for Agrobotany
45,833
Long-term facilities
Poland: Plant Breeding & Acclimatization Institute
44,883
Long-term facilities
Philippines: NPGRL
32,446
Long-term facilities
Current information in the WIEWS database indicates that over 40% of all accessions in genebanks are cereals. Food legumes are the next largest category constituting about 15% of global collections stored ex situ. Vegetables, roots and tubers, fruits, and forages, each account for less than 10% of global collections. Medicinal, spice, aromatic, and ornamental species are rarely found in long-term public collections. Information in the WIEWS database indicates that 48% of accessions for which the type of the material is known are advanced cultivars or breeding lines, while 36% are landraces or old cultivars and about 15% are wild or weedy plants or crop relatives. However, these can only be regarded as approximate estimates as the type of accession is only known for one third of all accessions. More accurate data is available on the CGIAR genebanks collections which appear to be more heavily weighted towards landraces (59% landraces and old cultivars, 14% wild and weedy relatives and 27% advanced cultivars and breeders’ lines). In general, the size of the collections of different crops reflects their global importance in production. The largest collections are of wheat, rice, barley and other major staples while crops of local importance (e.g. fonio, bambarra groundnut) tend to be under-represented in genebanks (Padulosi, 1997).
While the centres of diversity of most of the major crops are in developing countries, some of the largest and most extensive collections can be found in developed countries. Thus, there are very large collections in USA, Japan, Canada and Germany (Table 1). Table 3 gives a regional breakdown of accessions.
Table 2: Examples of ex situ collections of plant germplasm at selected CGIAR centres (source: SGRP data)
Centre
Crop
Number of Accessions
CIAT
Beans (Phaseolus)
Cassava (Manihot)
Tropical forages
41,061
5,985
23,894
CIMMYT
Wheat (including Triticum, Aegilops)
Maize (including Teosinte, Tripsacum)
98,905
13,246
CIP
Potato
Sweet potato
Andean roots and tubers
6,257
6,522
1,132
ICARDA
Barley (including wild Hordeum)
Wheat (including Triticum, Aegilops)
Chickpea (including wild Cicer)
Faba bean
Lentil (including wild Lens)
24,092
30,539
9,974
4,455
7,911
ICRISAT
Sorghum
Pearl millet
Chickpea
Pigeonpea
Groundnut
Minor millets
35,186
21,191
17,244
12,885
14,957
9,015
IRRI
Rice (Oryza)
80,646
Table 3: Genebanks and accessions in ex situ collections, by region (FAO, 1996b)
Region
Accessions
Genebanks
Number
%
Number
%
Africa
353 523
6
124
10
Latin America and Caribbean
642 405
12
227
17
North America
762 061
14
101
8
Asia
1 533 979
28
293
22
Europe
1 934 574
35
496
38
Near East
327 963
6
67
5
Total
5 554 505
100
1 308
100
2.2 Conservation procedures
Where possible, plant genetic resources are conserved as seed in genebanks under long, medium or short term conditions. Seed of many crops can be maintained for very long periods (over 100 years in some cases) provided it is stored at low temperatures (-20 C) and low moisture content. A number of genebanks now have substantial storage facilities which operate at -20 C suitable for long term storage while others maintain material at 4 C for medium term storage. However, there are still many genebanks which do not have any cold storage conditions and have to maintain material at ambient temperatures.
Plant species that are vegetatively propagated, that have long life cycles or produce short-lived (recalcitrant) seed, are commonly maintained in field genebanks. These include crops such as cassava, potato, bananas, plantains, yams, and tree crops such as fruits, coffee, cacao and coconut, which are normally grown in orchards and plantations. Almost every country has at least one field genebank and many countries have several. Although plants in field genebanks can be readily characterized and evaluated, they are also susceptible to loss, due either to pest or disease attack or adverse environmental conditions such as drought, floods, fire, wind, etc. In vitro storage is now being developed as an alternative or complementary method. Sixty-three countries report having a tissue culture facility, but it is unlikely that these facilities are all being used for conservation purposes. Information on accessions held in vitro is incomplete. Perhaps fewer than 37,600 accessions are being conserved in this manner. The total includes many working collections maintained by plant breeders, as well as those collections established specifically for long-term conservation.
There are now well established guidelines for the maintenance of seeds in genebanks (Ellis et al., 1985). It is recommended that at least 1500-2000 seeds are is maintained of each accession and that whenever germination levels drop below 85% (or for some legume species of crop relatives) steps are taken to regenerate the accession to provide a new stock of high viability. This is an area of genetic resources management that causes substantial problems for many national programmes; even under optimal ex situ storage conditions, seed viability will decline, necessitating regeneration in order to replenish stocks. Assuming the regeneration cycle to be 10 years or more on average, one would expect routine annual regeneration needs to amount to less than 10 percent of accessions. However, some 95 percent of countries report a far higher level of regeneration need. Such a situation is an indicator of poor storage conditions, lack of funds or facilities for regeneration, poor management, or a combination of such factors, in many of the world’s genebanks.
Wherever possible, genebanks strive to ensure that their holdings are duplicated in another institution. This provides security in the case of loss of material in the genebank through some accident or other cause. In practice, duplication of the world's genetic resources holdings is very incomplete since it requires substantial resources to ensure that sufficient quantities of each accession are multiplied, packed and shipped to an appropriate safety repository. Nonetheless, a number of genebanks, particularly those of the CGIAR are making significant efforts to ensure that safety duplication is undertaken. In addition to this deliberate effort to ensure the safety of whole collections, there is extensive casual duplication of accessions as a result of transfers between genebanks and different breeders or research groups over the last 2-3 decades.
2.3 Information management
It has always been recognized by those involved in conservation of plant genetic resources that information on the resources is as essential as the resources themselves. The most important information on any accession would include such items as taxonomic status, crop and variety name, original source (location) of the material, genebank accession number and other genebank management data. This provides the basic information on what an accession is and where it comes from that would be needed in any attempt to locate potentially useful material for disaster relief (see 3.3 below). Other important information would be that on the agro-morphological characteristics of the accession including its morphology, yield, cropping characteristics and resistance to pests, diseases and stresses. These data are normally described as characterization and evaluation data. A good overview of current genetic resources information management practices and procedures is provided by Painting et al. (1993) and IPGRI (1994).
It has to be accepted that many of the world’s ex situ collections are insufficiently and poorly documented. While some countries have fully computerized documentation systems and reasonably complete accession data (most European Countries, the USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, China, India, Brazil, Ethiopia, and Kenya), many countries have only partial computerization of documentation systems and much more limited data on accessions. In countries with decentralized ex situ germplasm collections, such as several in Western Europe, databases are maintained by the individual institutes. However, centralized documentation systems exist, e.g. in USA (the GRIN system) and in Germany at the German Information Centre for Genetic Resources. Despite the substantial progress that has been made in recent years, many countries simply lack information on the accessions in their own collections and many genetic resources workers would emphasize the need for integrated, compatible systems which allow for easy exchange of information.
The Internet facility allows direct access to the information on plant genetic resources on international level (SINGER, WIEWS, ECP/GR platform, IPGRI Crop Directories) as well as to the national documentation systems (GRIN in USA, GENRES in Germany, Nordic Gene Bank in Scandinavia and many others). Internet addresses of many of these can be found via WIEWS and some are listed in Annex 1.
The System-wide Information Network for Genetic Resources (SINGER) is the genetic resources information exchange network of the CGIAR. It provides common access to information concerning the collections of genetic resources held by the CGIAR Centres. SINGER links the genetic resources databases of the CGIAR Centres and allows searches for information relating to the identity, origin, characteristics and distribution of the genetic resources in the individual Centre collections and access to further specific data on the collections, e.g. crop characterization data. Similar activities can be carried out using GRIN and it is likely that Internet access to an increasing number of genebank holdings will become available in the next few years.
The WIEWS system provides information on national programmes on conservation and utilization of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and consists of a number of databases and information retrieval software including geographical presentation (maps) of location of ex situ plant collections. It provides a register of institutions involved in plant genetic resources conservation and utilization with a list of key scientists in each institution and a list of crops and activities dealt with. For each country, all institutions are given a series of numbers that hierarchically identifies them in the structure of the national plant genetic resources programme. The ex situ collections database provide a summary record of each genebank's (collection's) holdings. The data includes species name and number of accessions for this species, type of material held (wild, land race, advanced cultivar, breeder's material, mutants etc.), geographical distribution of accessions, place of safety duplication. For each collection the technical parameters of storage are recorded. The "Early Warning" database is being developed and will consist of reports on the possible genetic erosion in the natural environment and ex situ plant collections.
Information on more recently collected material is often substantially better than that on material collected early in the work on conservation. FAO and IPGRI both provide information on the kind of information that should be obtained as part of germplasm collecting work (FAO, 1994). Those involved in disaster relief activities where material is obtained directly from farmers or specific localities may wish to consider using some of these procedures to ensure that they have the right information on the materials they obtain.
2.4 Availability and Distribution
Most genebanks would place considerable emphasis on the importance of making material available to potential users of plant genetic resources for crop improvement and other purposes. Distribution to workers within the same country is often a key activity of many genebanks and the importance of international distribution is also recognized. Availability has 2 aspects; the procedures that need to be followed for distribution and exchange of accessions and the physical availability of genebank accessions.
With respect to international availability, though there are important differences, no country can claim self-sufficient in the genetic resources needed to sustain and improve agricultural production. According to recent studies, any region of the world is dependent on genetic material, which originated in other regions, for over 50% of its basic food production, and, for several regions of the world, such dependency is close to 100%. Because of such global interdependency, the access to plant genetic resources is an important component of some of the international agreements and Conventions, particularly the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources.
The International Undertaking and CBD express the objectives and commitments of the international community on issues relating to the conservation of, access to, and sustainable utilization of plant genetic resources. The TRIPs agreement contains the internationally agreed minimum standards for Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), including on plant varieties, through patents, or sui generis systems.
Another aspect of international concern is that of plant health status. Trade in plants and plant products and the exchange of germplasm is conducted within the framework of the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC). The IPPC, deposited with the FAO, is recognized as the primary instrument for international co-operation in the protection of plant resources from injurious pests and the harmonization of phytosanitary measures affecting trade. The exchange of germplasm internationally for research, conservation and basic plant breeding purposes, including material for biotechnology, requires specific phytosanitary information before the exchange can take place. Failure to follow these procedures can result in the introduction of new pests into countries or regions, and can ultimately result in epidemics that threaten food security and biodiversity. The IPPC Secretariat facilitates and assists in identifying technically sound practices that safeguard against the introduction and establishment of unwanted pests. It is for these reasons that most countries have sound, and often detailed, regulations on phytosanitary measures.
Often the quantities of any accession that may be available to the interested user is very small. Genebanks normally seek to be able to distribute quantities which can range from 100 seeds (for large seeded species) to 100 gm. These quantities are so small than one generation of further multiplication will usually be needed for many purposes such as multilocational trials and entry into breeding and evaluation programmes of agricultural institutes. Even these amounts might often not be available for some accessions. As noted above, there are also problems in availability that reflect the backlog of regeneration that many genebanks face and a special multiplication might be required before material can be made available to a potential user.
2.5 Institutions involved
Country based efforts form the central element in the global effort to conserve and use plant genetic resources. The work is often undertaken by more or less formally constituted national genetic resources programmes. The purpose of national PGRFA programmes is to contribute to national development, food security, sustainable agriculture and the maintenance of biodiversity through the conservation and utilization of PGRFA. The main functions are: development of national polices and strategies, co-ordination of national activities involving all stakeholders, providing linkages and providing the building blocks of regional and international collaboration.
Activities of a national PGRFA programme can be very wide ranging. They can include inventorying, exploration and collecting of germplasm, training and capacity building, in situ and ex situ conservation, research, characterization and evaluation, fund raising, genetic enhancement, development of legislation, crop improvement, regulation of access and exchange of genetic resources, seed and variety production and distribution, documentation and dissemination of information and public awareness raising.
It follows that a very diverse range of institutions can be involved in national plant genetic resources programmes and their organization and linkages is subject to extensive variation. Ministries and government departments often play a key role and the Ministry of Agriculture is often a central coordinating body working together with ministries responsible for forestry, environment, natural resources, science and technology, planning and development. A number of national agricultural research institutes are often involved in national programme activities together with Universities, Technical Colleges, Botanic Gardens and other research and development agencies. Important roles can also be played by NGOs, farmers' organizations, women's groups and companies in the private sector concerned with agriculture and forestry.
Both regional and national organizations also play an important part in conservation work. Regional organizations can include research institutions such as CATIE which is based in Costa Rica or AVRDC based in Taiwan and concerned with vegetable production. A number of regional networks have been established to support linkages between national programmes. These exist in all parts of the world and bring together national programmes for specific activities concerned with information management, germplasm exchange and distribution and research and development. They include for example WANANET (operating in West Asia and North Africa), REMERFI, REDAFIT and TROPIGEN (working in S and Central America), ASARECA in Africa and APAARI in Asia (Riley et al., 1995).
The CGIAR system and its associated centres plays a special role at the international level. Established in 1971, the CGIAR is an informal association of 58 public and private sector members that supports a network of sixteen international agricultural research centres. The mission of the CGIAR is to contribute, through its research, to promoting sustainable agriculture for food security in the developing countries. As noted above, CGIAR centres hold in trust for the future one of the world’s largest ex situ collections of plant genetic resources, containing over 600,000 accessions of more than 3,000 crop, forage, and pasture species. The collection includes improved varieties and, in substantial measure, the wild species from which those varieties were created. These materials are freely available to researchers around the world so that new gene combinations can be brought to bear on current problems. The CGIAR was the first to place its collections under the auspices of FAO as the basis of an international network of ex situ collections. The accessions in these collections will be released to bona fide users, through Material Transfer Agreements (MTAs) that require that no IPRs can be sought over the material. These materials are available for emergency situations and disasters.
FAO has a major role in global conservation work. With a mandate to raise levels of nutrition and standards of living, to improve agricultural productivity, and to better the conditions of rural populations, the organization gives highest priority to food security - access of all people at all times to food they need for an active and healthy life. Recognizing the importance of genetic resources for food production and agriculture development, FAO Conference in 1983 established the Commission on Plant Genetic Resources (now the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture - CGRFA), through which countries, inter alia, monitor and oversee the development of a Global System for the conservation and sustainable utilization of PGRFA, including the International Undertaking and the Global Plan of Action. The International Undertaking is currently being renegotiated to bring it in full harmony with CBD, especially its provisions on access with CBD principles. These negotiations are premised on the importance of ensuring, at least for a number of crops, a multilateral system that facilitate access to and exchange of PGRFA. In addition, FAO maintains a number of important activities such as the development and maintenance of WIEWS.
2.6 Ex situ and in situ conservation
While plant genetic resources activities have traditionally been conserved with ex situ conservation, the importance of supporting in situ conservation activities is now increasingly recognized. Formal in situ conservation activities are being implemented by a number of countries both for wild relatives of crop plants (e.g. Ertug and Tan, 1997) and for local crop varieties (Worede, 1997; Jarvis and Hodgkin, 1999). The role that these activities could play in disaster preparedness and relief has not been addressed to date and needs further consideration. However, one important feature of these activities is that they retain the full diversity and integrity of local cultivars with, hopefully, sufficient adaptive variation to allow their continued evolution and adaptation to changing conditions. Local cultivars in some collections have been separated into a number of different accessions comprising the different types found in them. While this should ensure maintenance of all the diversity present in the local variety it may make reconstituting a local cultivar for use in disaster relief more difficult.
3. PGR and disaster preparedness and response
Plant genetic resources have considerable potential to contribute to the provision of appropriate seeds (or other planting materials) following disasters. In this section we consider some of the key issues involved in making this contribution from the perspective of identifying the range of resources available, determining the issues involved in finding those most appropriate for specific situations (and the capacities to do this) and considering how to use them.
However, it is also important to note and accept the limitations of seed provision as an appropriate intervention following a disaster. As other have noted (e.g. ODI,1996) there are situations where provision of seed is undesirable (e.g. conditions are not yet suitable for a return to production), or unnecessary (e.g. secret seed stocks exist). There are also occasions where other needs are paramount such as the need to earn off farm income or where other materials (tools etc) are needed more.
3.1 Identifying material needs
Where seed provision can make an identified contribution, a primary consideration should be an understanding of the variety needs of the affected communities. Important components in the analysis of these needs include a consideration of the crops required, the phenological and ecological characteristics required of the crops in the affected areas (daylength adaptation, cold hardiness etc). A knowledge is also required of the characteristics of the production systems and the current status of the various socio-economic factors that are important in the management of production and of seed supply systems. An area of particular concern is the extent to which previous production materials and systems are still appropriate in the wake of the disaster.
There is a common presumption that the material required should match as closely as possible that which has been destroyed in the disaster. This may be generally true and it is certainly likely to be the basis of any disaster preparedness plans. However, it may not always be the case. For example, there may be a need for short season (or even off-season) varieties to ensure the rapid production of some food under abnormal conditions. There may also be a need for material that produces well under low input agriculture for situations where fertilizers are lacking or normal irrigation systems have been destroyed. Finally, the social or economic situation may have changed to such an extent that new production systems are developing for which new varieties are needed. These issues are discussed more fully in Richards and Ruivenkamp (1997). Plant genetic resources and information can still be deployed to meet these different needs but the procedure for identifying the optimum resources has to take account of these specific factors.
3.2 Local sources of material
Other papers prepared for this meeting will deal more fully with issues of supporting local seed systems and locating local materials from the production system (e.g. Farmer Seeds Systems in Disaster Situations; Seed Stocks and Seed Multiplication in Crisis). From a genetic resources perspective, it is worth noting that an increasing number of countries are concerned to develop effective systems for conserving local varieties in situ. The form that these will take will vary considerably and is currently the source of much debate. However, they may well provide sources of useful material with proven adaptation to the environments in which they are grown and sufficient variability to adapt to changing environments and production conditions (see also 2.6, above).
It is also worth considering whether the information contained within genetic resources conservation systems can be used to help locate potentially useful materials. The results of many years of collecting, characterization and evaluation of plant genetic resources may well provide information on where appropriate types might still be found and what characteristics should be looked for.
One problem with respect to the potential use of material conserved in situ is that information management systems, which parallel those developed for ex situ conserved materials, have yet to be developed. There is a critical need for NARS to develop databases on plant genetic resources of traditional varieties grown in their countries. Inventories of plant germplasm in production systems which include information on agro-ecological production conditions, crop characteristics and relevant socio-economic data would be extremely valuable and are important elements both of CBD and of the Global Plan. A regional Seed Security Network could serve as a repository for this information gathered by NARS in the region and could be tapped when needed for information on stocks that need to be replaced in areas affected by disaster in other locations in the region.
3.3 Information availability and capacities
The information on plant genetic resources that can be used when identifying optimum resources for relief situations depends very much on the quality of documentation systems in genebanks. Data are basically divided into five categories:
- Passport data which includes basic information on a sample conserved in a genebank - name of a variety or local name of a cultivar, botanical characteristic, country of origin etc.;
- Management data which provides the basis for the management of a sample in the genebank in order to assist multiplication and regeneration procedures (germination percentage, type of regeneration procedure);
- Characterization data on attributes which are highly heritable and can be seen by eye and are equally expressed in all environments (shapes, colours etc);
- Evaluation data which includes information on agronomic characteristics which are susceptible to environment differences (e.g. yield, agronomic performance and stress susceptibilities); and
- Environment site data which includes environmental and site-specific parameters when characterisation and evaluation trials are held. Site information for the area from which the material was originally collected is also in this group.
Unfortunately information on accessions is seldom complete and it is not uncommon to find that accessions possess only limited passport and management data with little or no characterization or evaluation data. One problem in attempting to use plant genetic resources in disaster relief activities may be the limited data available to identify the most useful accessions. However, in a number of genebank collections a substantial fraction of the accessions possess sufficient information to make searches to find suitable material well worth undertaking providing the limitations of the information are accepted.
The first line of investigation may well be to identify accessions of relevant crops which originate from the country of concern or from neighbouring countries sharing similar production systems and production environments. This very simple approach was the one used to identify Somali maize and sorghum materials held in Kenya which could then be used in the CINS/IPGRI initiative. A similar approach was used for the Rwanda Seeds of Hope initiative where CIAT was able to identify accessions obtained from Rwanda which could be provided in case of need. Large international genebanks often have substantial collections from many countries and the SINGER database or the USA GRIN database can be used to identify such materials rapidly and easily. As an example, Table 4 lists the major collections of sorghum and Table 5 the countries from which the material held by ICRISAT (the world's largest single collection) was obtained.
Where passport data includes latitude and longitude, direct mapping of the original site of collection of accessions is possible. This is often the case for only a small proportion (20-50%) of accessions. However, sufficient site information is often available to allow interested users to map accessions and calculate appropriate latitude and longitude data. For the world's collections of wild wheats, this was possible for 70% of the accessions (Hodgkin et al., 1992).
Table 4: Major collections of Sorghum in different countries
Genebank
Country
Accession
Number
%
ICRISAT
CGIAR
35,186
21
NSSL
USA
18,971
11
S-9
USA
15,434
9
VIR
Russia
9,892
6
PGRC-E
Ethiopia
7,260
4
DTCP-CSIRO
Australia
7,000
4
CNPMS
Brazil
6,589
4
ICGR-CAAS
China
5,263
3
USDA
Puerto Rico
4,000
2
ASP
Yemen
4,000
2
INTA-EEAMANF
Argentina
3,900
2
ARC-Sudan
Sudan
3,145
2
CIFAP-MEX
Mexico
3,000
2
NRC-Sorghum
India
2,767
2
SAARI
Uganda
2,635
2
NIAR
Japan
2,583
2
INIA-Iguala
Mexico
2,500
1
NPGRL
Philippines
2,285
1
CENARGEN
Brazil
2,276
1
Others
29,864
18
Total
168,550
100
Geographic information systems (GIS) analysis can be combined with these simple geographic approaches to increase the specificity of the search process. In this way it should be possible to select sets of material which are likely to have more relevant characteristics. For example, location information (from passport data) can be combined with information on climate or soils in the affected areas to locate material adapted for specific production environments (e.g. with specific altitude, temperature, daylength, soil or other characteristics). These techniques are being increasingly used to analyse the extent and distribution of genetic diversity and their application in this context would now seem very feasible (for a recent description of the use of GIS techniques for germplasm management activities see Guarino et al., 1997).
Mapping techniques can be complemented by a wide range of bibliographic information on socio-economic aspects and on cultural preferences and other characteristics. These can also be combined with any agronomic data already maintained by the genebanks on the accessions themselves. Often cultural and socio-economic data will need to be collated from other sources since these are not areas in which gene banks have traditionally maintained much information.
Table 5: Country of origin of ICRISAT's sorghum collections according to SINGER (only countries providing over 100 accessions are listed)
Country
No. of accessions
Country
No. of accessions
India
6092
China
380
Ethiopia
4372
Lebanon
360
Cameroon
2479
Zambia
341
Sudan
2456
Togo
294
Yemen, Republic of
2129
Rwanda
290
United States of America
2065
Lesotho
269
Uganda
1730
Central African Republic
249
Nigeria
1678
Senegal
239
Zimbabwe
1599
Botswana
218
Kenya
971
Swaziland
202
South Africa
902
Benin
197
Tanzania
701
Chad
187
Mali
701
Namibia
181
Burkina Faso
546
Venezuela
173
Somalia
445
Ghana
146
Niger
409
Burundi
136
Malawi
403
Japan
108
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (former)
395
Sierra Leone
107
Others
1092
There is clearly a considerable potential to use a range of integrated sources of information available from plant genetic resources databases and other systems to identify material that might be of relevance in responding to seed needs following disasters. There are also limitations which reflect partly the availability of information on genebank accessions and partly the lack of experience that exists with respect to the best ways of using the information that is available. This is an area where coordinated investigations on a case study basis would be extremely rewarding in determining the potential and pitfalls of these information techniques as part of search systems for suitable materials.
3.4 Institutional capacities
Nearly all countries possess a plant genetic resources programme of some type that provides an institutional framework for providing relevant genetic resources and information for disaster relief. Of course, in many situations the institutions may themselves be substantially affected by the disaster and find it difficult or impossible to respond. However it is likely that there will still be some people who have substantial knowledge that is relevant to the identification of optimum materials and their involvement is essential.
As described in Section 2, national genetic resources programmes can comprise a very large number of different organizations and groups. Obviously, they may also be very small and consist of a few breeders or conservers working on a range of crops with extremely limited resources. However, there are potentially a wide range of organizations that could be consulted and mobilized to provide relevant information on genetic resources. Institutions directly involved in conserving materials and in using them in crop improvement work can provide information on their holdings and often on holdings of others (such as CG Centres or genebanks in other countries). They may also provide access to sources of material in national breeding programmes or other research centres. Information on ecological characteristics, on soils, geology, climate will come from other institutions and ministries and can be used to identify areas in which relevant adapted material can be found outside the disaster area. NGOs and farmers groups will provide information on locally important characteristics that need to be considered in locating appropriate materials.
Both regional and international institutes and organizations can also supply relevant information to help locate suitable resources. These usually already have some linkages to national programmes, especially such as IPGRI and UN agencies such as FAO, which maintain close links with many national programme personnel. Networks that are concerned with information and material exchange can also provide up to date information on relevant germplasm resources and the information available on it.
While there are many institutions with potential to provide useful and relevant information and materials, there are likely to be substantial problems in realizing their full potential. Resources to respond to needs will be often be extremely limited. Locating relevant information or materials will often be impossible unless additional resources can be made available to support searches and evaluation of both the information and the material. The required collaboration between different organizations and groups may not exist and there may be an incomplete appreciation of the needs and how they can best be met. Discussion of the practical implications of using plant genetic resources to assist in disaster relief at national and regional levels within the context of implementing the Global Plan is clearly needed.
4. Building improved response systems and capacities
A basic objective of introducing the genetic resources component in seed relief work is to optimize the provision of material through the best use of all the different information and seed resources that are available. It is likely that there are a number of situations where genetic resources, the information on them and the institutions and people involved in their conservation and use can make a material contribution to providing appropriate seed materials following different types of disaster. Institutional support is needed to strengthen linkages between those involved in provision of seeds to disaster-affected agricultural systems at national, regional and international levels. Key elements that should be sought through this process and that would maximize the contribution of genetic resources include:
4.1 Institutional considerations
Links are clearly needed between those involved in provision of seed in disaster situation and those involved in management of genetic resources. These links are needed at national, regional and international levels. The national programmes in many countries are complex and dispersed involving many different institutions. In addition there are many regional and international organizations also involved in genetic resources management. Appropriate focal points might need to be identified who could help to coordinate planning and development of the work needed and provide the necessary liaison between different actors. At the same time it is necessary to recognize that resources will be needed to support any new initiatives and develop an effective programme. A valuable contribution would be to strengthen regional pgr networks and enhance their capacity to manage information on genetic resources availability in ex situ collections for seed relief programmes.
Activities undertaken by national programmes under their CBD obligations or in support of the implementation of the Global Plan can materially contribute to the improved identification of appropriate material for seed provision following disasters. A key element would be improved inventories of local variety use at country level.
4.2 Material availability
Even when useful material can be found in genebanks the amounts of seed available are always likely to be small. Ways in which this problem might be addressed are needed. It might be possible to develop reserve stocks of key adapted types in some genebanks or to strengthen on farm conservation systems. Links are also needed between genebanks and those routinely involved in multiplying seeds (seed companies) so as to benefit from their experience and resources. One specific problem that may need to be addressed by some genebanks is that of maintaining local cultivars in their original state and not separating them into separate components.
4.3 Information
Information on genebank holdings and the systems and procedures developed for managing and using such information may prove to be one of the greatest contributions that the genetic resources community can make. However further investigations are needed to determine how the information can best be used, what its strengths and weakness are in the context of the activities envisaged and what improved systems could be developed. This might best be done through collaborative studies by those involved in seed relief and by relevant PGR institutions to develop and test appropriate ways of using information on pgr to assist in disaster relief and locate useful materials.
5. Acknowledgements
The authors thank many colleagues for their helpful inputs into the preparation of this paper,, particularly, Victor Bushamuka, Nina Dudnik, Jan Engels, Pablo Eyzaguirre, Bill Fiebig, Dave Nowell, and Jurek Serwinski.
6. References
Ellis, R.H., T.D. Hong and E.H. Roberts, 1985. Handbook of seed technology for genebanks, Vols. I and II, IPGRI, Rome.
Ertug, A. and A. Tan, 1997. In situ conservation of genetic diversity in Turkey. In: N. Maxted, B.V. Ford Lloyd and J.G. Hawkes, Plant genetic conservation: the in situ approach. Chapman & Hall, UK, pp. 254-262.
FAO, 1994. International code of conduct for plant germplasm collecting, FAO, Rome.
FAO, 1996a. Global Plan of Action for the Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. FAO, Rome, pp. 63.
FAO, 1996b. Report on the State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. FAO, Rome, pp. 75.
Guarino, L., N. Maxted & M. Sawkins (1997) "Analysis of geo-referenced data and the conservation and use of plant genetic resources." Linking Genetics and Geography: Emerging Strategies for Managing Crop Biodiversity. ASA/CSSA/SSSA Annual Meetings. 26-31 October 1997. Anaheim, California.
Hodgkin, T., Adham, Y.J. and Powell, K.S. (1992) A preliminary survey of wild Triticum and Aegilops species in the world’s genebanks. Hereditas 116: 155-162.
IPGRI, 1994, Genebank Standards, IPGRI, Rome, pp. 13.
IPGRI, 1998. Re-introduction of germplasm for diversification of the genetic base of the Somali agricultural production system. IPGRI Report.
Jarvis, D. and T. Hodgkin, 1999. Farmer decision making and genetic diversity: Linking multi- disciplinary research and implementation on form. In: S. Brush (eds.) Genes in the Field, C.R.C. Lewis (in press).
ODI, 1996. Seed provision during and after emergencies. Relief and rehabilitation network. Good Practice Review 4, ODI, UK.
Padulosi, S., 1997. Underutilized species: status and initiatives aimed at better conservation and use. Congreso Nacional de la Sociedad Espanola de Genetica, Valencia, Spain, 11-13 September 1997. (in press)
Painting, K.A., M.C. Perry, R.A. Denning and W.G. Ayad, 1993. Guidebook for genetic resources documentation. IPGRI, Rome, pp. 295.
Richards, P. and G. Ruivenkamp, 1997. Seeds and survival: crop genetic resources in reconstruction in Africa. IPGRI, Rome, pp. 61.
Riley, K,W., Zhou Ming De and V.R. Rao, 1995. Networks for the effective management and use of plant genetic resources in Asia, Pacific and Oceania. Paper presented at meeting on Coordination and Evaluation of Network of PGR at National, Regional and International Level, Yogyakarta, September, 1996.
Sperling, L. 1995a. Emergency Relief in Rwanda: Assesssment of bean and seed use. Summary report. SOH Assessment Document 1; Impact of war on plant genetic resources: bean varietal Assesssment in Rwanda. Summary report. SOH Assesssment Document II.
Worede, M. 1997. Ethiopian in situ conservation. In: N. Maxted, B.V. Ford Lloyd and J.G. Hawkes, Plant genetic conservation: the in situ approach. Chapman
Annex 1: Information sets and databases accessible and searchable online through the Internet
n.b.: URLs were correct on 15 September 1998
Name
Description
URL
Availability in other format
Central Crop
Databases, Directory
of European PGR
Collections (ECP/GR)The European Information Platform on Crop Genetic Resources, established under the umbrella of the European Cooperative Programme for Crop Genetic Resources Networks (ECP/GR) provides online access to regional/global crop specific databases (genetic resources conserved in genebanks throughout the Region) and contact information for institutions which are active in crop genetic resources conservation and utilization. Several components of this information platform are still under development. In particular the number of European Crop Databases to which on-line access is given, will increase considerably in the near future.
Printed publication:
Frison, E.A. and J. Serwinski 1995Directory of Arid Land Research Organizations (FAO)
Contains contact details, research programmes, scope of interest, facilities, etc. of arid land research organizations world-wide. It provides a list of countries and an index of the institutes. Based on the 4th edition (1995) of the Directory.
http://www.fao.org/
WAICENT/FAOINFO/
FORESTRY/ARIDLAND/
ARIDLAND.HTMPrinted publication: Waser, K.V. and B.S. Hutchinson, 1995
Directory of Germplasm Collections, IPGRI
Maintained by the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute IPGRI. The Directory provides summary information on ex situ germplasm collections worldwide. The data include address information on organizations holding germplasm and summary information on the type of germplasm that is maintained such as, species names, number of accessions per species, type of accessions, etc. Currently summary information on more than 5 million accessions worldwide is available.
Searches can be defined on germplasm characteristics (taxon, type of material, country of origin, number of accessions) and/or holding location (name institute, city, country). Addititonal information, such as safety-duplication status or parameters on seed strage can be obtained from IPGRI.
Printed Directories of Germplasm Collections (At present 16 directories covering all major agricultural crops)
ECOCROP 1 (FAO)
(Test version)The ECOCROP1 database was developed as a tool to identify plant species (about 1700) for given environments and uses. It can be used as a library of crop environmental requirements and it can provide plant species attribute files on crop environmental requirements to be compared with soil and climate maps in Agro-ecological zoning (AEZ) databases or Geographical Information System (GIS) map-based display. Searchable by crop, soil and climate requirement.
Future developments: expanded information on crop husbandry, seed sources, plant genetic resources.
http://www.fao.org/
waicent/FaoInfo/Agricult/
AGL/AGLS/eco1.HTMEcosys
"Beckstrom-Sternberg, Stephen M. and James A. Duke. The Ecosys Database. Http://probe.nalusda.gov:8300/cgi-bin/browse/ecosys."
885 records of plant ecological ranges including ranges for temperature, rainfall and soil pH. Searchable by taxon, genus, family.
Famine Foods DataBase
List of plants that are not normally considered as crops and their uses as food. Provides species lists by family or species name and gives information about a species’ use and its common name.
GRIN Germplasm Resources Information Network
Maintained by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service's (ARS) National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS).The GRIN database contains information on all genetic resources preserved by NPGS, including accessions of both domestic and foreign origin (currently more than 450 000 accessions of economically important vascular plants). Though the emphasis is on major, minor, or potential crops and their wild and weedy relatives, many other categories of plants are represented including ornamentals and, more recently, some rare and endangered plants. Can be searchec by accession, crop science registration, plant variety protection and taxonomic queries(see GRIN taxonomy) and crop lists and their descriptors
SINGER CGIAR’s System-wide information Network for Genetic Resources
SINGER links the genetic resources databases of the CGIAR Centres and allows searches for information relating to the identity, origin, characteristics and distribution of the genetic resources in the individual Centre collections and access to further specific data on the collections, eg. crop characterisation data.
There are a variety of search possibilities: Accession level and crop-based searching categories, predefined searches, characterization searches.
Continuously updates by the CGIAR centers.
CD-ROM, data as of 1st April 1997. Free of charge, available from the SINGER coordinator, International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, Via delle Sette Chiese 142, 00145 Rome, Italy, tel (+39)6-518921, fax (+39)6-5750309
WIEWS (FAO) World Information and Early Warning system on Plant Genetic Resources
The system provides information about national programmes on conservation and utilization of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and consists of a number of databases and information retrieval software. Country Profile module: describes the structure of national Programmes
Ex-situ Collections database: summary record of each genebank’s (collection’s) holdings;
Early Warning database: under development. Will consist of reports on the possible genetic erosion in the natural environment and ex situ collections.
The system can be searched by institute, genebank, species, contact people and crop activities
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