Abstract
Crop genetic resources are foundations of human civilisations and are indispensable for continued existence of human race. They not only help to satiate hunger but also provide livelihood and cultural identities to humans inhabiting a specific habitat. They have shaped the cultural identities of the people as well as supported the subsistence and livelihood. They are the basic raw material for evolving new plant varieties and are a reservoir of genetic diversity. However, genetic resources are being lost at an increasingly alarming rate. The intensification of farming systems, change in food habits as well as emerging new breeding technologies such as genetic engineering have accelerated the pace of erosion. With the erosion of these resources, mankind loses the potential to adapt to new socio-economic and environmental conditions. Currently only 150 plant species are under extensive global cultivation, with 12 crop species providing 80% of the world’s food. Given the landscape of modern agriculture in terms of its enhanced market and demand orientation, the observed changes are inevitable, notwithstanding the fact that this decline of crop diversity at both the inter- and intra-species has definite negative implications for the productivity, stability and resilience of the global farming system. Therefore, crop breeders have been collecting, maintaining and distributing crop diversity in ex situ system in fairly modern facilities called gene banks in an apparent move to prevent any catastrophic situation in the future. Currently there are about 1750 gene banks in the world maintaining millions of accessions of crops and their wild relatives. Nearly 7.4 million accessions (about 2 million of which are estimated to be unique) are now conserved ex situ in over 1750 facilities worldwide. The 16 centres of CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) alone account for 30–60% of the unique accessions of the world’s unique holdings. The gene banks are vital to national and international efforts to conserve and harness benefits of global crop diversity and make invaluable contributions to regional and global germplasm exchange. There are obviously distinct advantages to the crop improvement and research community as a whole in also establishing large, megadiverse, international ex situ collections, as they are maintained in fairly advanced facilities, under specialised staff, with continuous refinement of biodiversity management protocols as well as follow an efficient system for material distribution worldwide to different types of users in a safe manner.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Abbreviations
- CGIAR:
-
Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research
- CIAT:
-
International Center for Tropical Agriculture
- FAO:
-
Food and Agriculture Organization
- HYVs:
-
High-yielding varieties
- IPCC:
-
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
- IRRI:
-
International Rice Research Institute
- PGR:
-
Plant genetic resources
- SDGs :
-
Sustainable Development Goals
References
Allard RW (1996) Genetic basis of the evolution of adaptedness in plants. Euphytica 92(1–2):1–11
Aw-Hassan A, Shideed K, Ceccarelli S et al (2003) The impact of international and national investment in barley germplasm improvement in the developing countries. Crop variety improvement and its effect on productivity: the impact of international agricultural research. CAB International, Wallingford, pp 241–246
Brockhaus R, Oetmann A (1996) Aspects of the documentation of in situ conservation measures of genetic resources. Bulletin des Ressources Phytogenetiques (IPGRI/FAO); Noticiario de Recursos Fitogeneticos (IPGRI/FAO)
Byerlee D, Traxler G (1995) National and international wheat improvement research in the post-green revolution period: evolution and impacts. Am J Agric Econ 77:268–278. https://doi.org/10.2307/1243537
CGIAR (2019). www.cgiar.org/research/program-platform/genebank-platform
Crop Trust (2015) Securing crop diversity for sustainable development. Global Crop Diversity Trust, Bonn
Dalton TJ, Guei RG (2003) Ecological diversity and rice varietal improvement in West Africa. Crop variety improvement and its effect on productivity: the impact of international agricultural research. CAB International, Wallingford, pp 109–133
FAO (1999) Agricultural biodiversity, multifunctional character of agriculture and land conference, Background Paper 1. Maastricht, Netherlands. September 1999
FAO (2003) World agriculture: towards 2015/2030. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
FAO (2010) The second report on the state of the world’s plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. Rome
FAO (2018) The state of food security and nutrition in the world: building climate resilience for Food Security and Nutrition. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Fu YB (2007) Understanding crop genetic diversity under modern plant breeding. Theor Appl Genet 128(11):2131–2142
Hammer K, Teklu Y (2008) Plant genetic resources: selected issues from genetic erosion to genetic engineering. J Agric Rural Dev Trop Subtrop (JARTS) 109(1):15–50
Hao C, Wang L, Zhang X et al (2006) Genetic diversity in Chinese modern wheat varieties revealed by microsatellite markers. Sci China, Series C: Life Sci 49:218–226
Harlan JR (1970) Evolution of cultivated plants. In: Frankel OH, Bennett E (eds) Genetic resources in plants – IBP handbook no 11. International Biological Programme, London, pp 19–32
Hawkes JG (1997) Distinguished economic botanist. Econ Bot 51(1):2–5
Hein L, Gatzweiler F (2006) The economic value of coffee (Coffea arabica) genetic resources. Ecol Econ 60:176–185. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2005.11.022
Hoisington D, Khairallah M, Reeves T et al (1999) Plant genetic resources: what can they contribute toward increased crop productivity? Proc Natl Acad Sci 96(11):5937–5943
Hossain M, Gollin D, Cabanilla V et al (2003) International research and genetic improvement in rice: evidence from Asia and Latin America, in: crop variety improvement and its effect on productivity: the impact of international agricultural research. CABI Publishing, Wallingford
Hunter D, Heywood V (2011) Crop wild relatives: a manual of in situ conservation. Bioversity International, Rome, Italy
Hyten DL, Song QJ, Zhu YL et al (2006) Impacts of genetic bottlenecks on soybean genome diversity. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 103:16666–16671
IRRI (2012) IRRI Annual Report 2012. www.irri.org/resources/publications/annual-reports/annual-report-2012
Jarvis A, Upadhyaya HD, Gowda CLL et al (2008) Climate change and its effect on conservation and use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and associated biodiversity for food security. FAO document pp 26
Johnson NL, Manyong VM, Dixon AG et al (2003a) The impact of IARC genetic improvement programmes on cassava. In: Crop variety improvement and its effect on productivity: the impact of international agricultural research. CABI Publishing, Wallingford
Johnson NL, Pachico D, Voysest O (2003b) The distribution of benefits from public international germplasm banks: the case of beans in Latin America. Returns Invest Plant Genet Resour Conserv Crop Improv Res 29:277–286
Khoury CK, Bjorkman AD, Dempewolf H et al (2014) Increasing homogeneity in global food supplies and the implications for food security. Proc Natl Acad Sci 111:4001–4006
Koo B, Pardey PG, Wright BD et al (2004) Saving seeds: the economics of con- serving crop genetic resources ex-situ in the future harvest centres of the CGIAR. CABI Publishing, Oxfordshire
Malysheva-Otto L, Ganal MW, Law JR et al (2007) Temporal trends of genetic diversity in European barley cultivars (Hordeum vulgare L.). Mol Breed 20(4):309–322
Morris ML (2002) Impacts of international maize breeding research in developing countries, 1966–98, CIMMYT
Myers N (1994) Protected areas – protected from a greater what? Biodivers Conserv 3:411–418
Raitzer DA, Kelley TG (2008) Benefit–cost meta-analysis of investment in the International Agricultural Research Centers of the CGIAR. Agric Syst 96:108–123
Sanint LR, Wood S (1998) Impact of rice research in Latin America and the Caribbean during the past three decades. In: Impact of rice research. International Rice Research Institute, Manila
Schreinemachers P, Ebert AW, Wu M (2014) Costing the ex situ conservation of plant genetic resources at AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center. Genet Resour Crop Evol 61:757–773
Thomson MJ, Septiningsih EM, Suwardjo F et al (2007) Genetic diversity analysis of traditional and improved Indonesian rice (Oryza sativa L.) germplasm using microsatellite markers. Theor Appl Genet 114:559–568
Van de Wouw M, Kik C, van Hintum T et al (2010) Genetic erosion in crops: concept, research results and challenges. Plant Genet Resour 8(1):1–15
White J, Law JR, MacKay I et al (2008) The genetic diversity of UK, US and Australian cultivars of Triticum aestivum measured by DArT markers and considered by genome. Theor Appl Genet 116(3):439–453
Witt S (1985) Biotechnology and genetic diversity. Briefbook No. 2. California Agricultural Lands Project
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sofi, P.A., Zargar, S.M., Mir, R.A., Salgotra, R.K. (2020). Role of Gene Banks in Maintaining Crop Genetic Resources. In: Salgotra, R., Zargar, S. (eds) Rediscovery of Genetic and Genomic Resources for Future Food Security. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0156-2_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0156-2_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-15-0155-5
Online ISBN: 978-981-15-0156-2
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)