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Global Crop Conservation Strategies

Start year: 2019

Breathing New Life into Global Crop Conservation Strategies

Over the past 16 years, the Crop Trust has facilitated the development of 26 global crop- and geographically-based conservation strategies by experts round the world. To stay relevant, these strategies need to be continuously updated with new information on the status of crop diversity collections and the genetic structure within crop genepools.

Something Old, Something New

Starting in 2019, thanks to a grant from the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), the Crop Trust and its partners have been working to update five existing global crop conservation strategies—potato, yams, vigna, millets and sorghum—and to develop 10 new ones—for brassica, citrus, cucurbits, eggplant, groundnut, pea, peppers, sunflower, temperate forages and vanilla.

These strategies provide details about existing ex situ collections of crop diversity, including the status of their conservation, their availability, accessibility and distribution and provide concrete recommendations for how to improve and secure the crops’ long-term conservation and use. 

Information and recommendations from the strategies are used by institutions and policymakers to help ensure that these important crops and their genetic relatives are secured in a cost-effective and sustainable manner for the future of all.

OPINION PAPER Dulloo E and Khoury CK. 2023. Towards Mainstreaming Global Crop Conservation Strategies. Global Crop Diversity Trust. Bonn, Germany.

Peter Giovannini headshot

The goal is to create a conservation system that is more secure, more representative of [crop] diversity, and more cost-effective, with better links between collections and users.

Peter Giovannini Global Crop Conservation Strategies Project Coordinator

Partners and donor

The development of this crop conservation strategy was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) as part of the three-year project led by the Crop Trust: Breathing New Life into the Global Crop Conservation Strategies: Providing an Evidence Base for the Global System of Ex Situ Conservation of Crop Diversity. The Crop Trust also cooperated with the Secretariat of The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) in the development of this document.

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