Collecting
The first step in the process of conserving crop diversity in genebanks is to locate and collect this diversity, from farmers’ fields and from the wild. Starting with the global collecting work of Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov in the 1920’s, the world’s genebanks have identified varieties of crops and related species, collected and conserved them in order to develop, diversify, refine, or otherwise improve agriculture.
Collectors were also some of the first to recognize the decline in crop diversity, especially prevalent during the last half-century, due to the conversion from traditional to modern agriculture, and factors such as habitat destruction, desertification, and urbanization. Collecting has therefore taken on an added urgency as genebank collections have increasingly become the sole surviving source of traditional landraces and of wild germplasm.
Collecting continues today to identify diversity useful for agriculture, before it is lost completely. Although the majority of diversity for many crops has probably been collected, crops primarily of importance to the poor have been poorly collected. For example, a mere 35% of the diversity of cassava has been collected. In addition, many of the wild species related to all our crops are not well represented in collections, and even today new species related to our major crops are being discovered and described. And in the past decades a new threat has come to the forefront of collecting priorities. Climate change will increase the rate of extinction and has therefore produced an additional imperative for future collecting, in order to locate and safeguard species before they disappear from their natural habitats. At the same time, collectors increasingly focus on the extremes of range of crops and their relatives, whereas before attention was focussed on collecting in the centre of a species’ range. By collecting at the extremes, the genes useful for adaptation may be conserved.
In 2008 the Trust will launch a competitive grants project in order to support the collecting of remaining genetic diversity for the world’s most important crops. Priority will be given to collecting for traits which are likely to be most useful in adapting crops to climate change.
Collectors were also some of the first to recognize the decline in crop diversity, especially prevalent during the last half-century, due to the conversion from traditional to modern agriculture, and factors such as habitat destruction, desertification, and urbanization. Collecting has therefore taken on an added urgency as genebank collections have increasingly become the sole surviving source of traditional landraces and of wild germplasm.
Collecting continues today to identify diversity useful for agriculture, before it is lost completely. Although the majority of diversity for many crops has probably been collected, crops primarily of importance to the poor have been poorly collected. For example, a mere 35% of the diversity of cassava has been collected. In addition, many of the wild species related to all our crops are not well represented in collections, and even today new species related to our major crops are being discovered and described. And in the past decades a new threat has come to the forefront of collecting priorities. Climate change will increase the rate of extinction and has therefore produced an additional imperative for future collecting, in order to locate and safeguard species before they disappear from their natural habitats. At the same time, collectors increasingly focus on the extremes of range of crops and their relatives, whereas before attention was focussed on collecting in the centre of a species’ range. By collecting at the extremes, the genes useful for adaptation may be conserved.
In 2008 the Trust will launch a competitive grants project in order to support the collecting of remaining genetic diversity for the world’s most important crops. Priority will be given to collecting for traits which are likely to be most useful in adapting crops to climate change.