ICARDA News

The genebanks of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) hold in trust more than 666,000 accessions (2001 tally, Table 1) of crop, forage, and agroforestry tree species. ICARDA's genebank alone holds more than 130,000 (122,467 in 2001, Table 1) accessions, including wild relatives of important crop species. This represents the second largest collection in the CGIAR System. The ICARDA region is well known as the home of some of the most widely cultivated crops in the world. The region contains three of the eight centers of crop origin identified by Vavilov. Barley, wheat, lentil and vetch were all domesticated here. The wild progenitors and relatives of these crops occur in the region to this day. They have evolved under harsh conditions over millennia and are an invaluable source of genes with tolerance to drought and heat to meet the anticipated effects of climate change. About 70% of the Center's collections are now geo-referenced.
     Between 1995 and 1999, the CGIAR centers shipped about 94,000 samples per year to researchers, crop breeders, farmers, and other genebanks worldwide. In the same period, ICARDA shipped 31,017 samples annually, the largest number in the CGIAR System (Table 1). These accessions are proving invaluable for crop breeding programs, especially in developing countries, and are contributing to increased productivity of agriculture. The benefits to the developed countries have been substantial too, as shown by evidence from both Australia and the United States.
     About $150 million is needed for an endowment to fund the genebanks of the CGIAR, a small price compared to the productivity gains these genebanks can provide to feed the world's growing population, a commentary in the February 2003 issue of Nature Biotechnology states.
     With little land left to bring into production, and a projected 3 billion increase in the world population by 2050, "there is no reason to think the importance of diverse germplasm in ensuring increased food production will diminish anytime soon," said the authors, Bonwoo Koo, of the International Food Policy Research Institute; Philip Pardey, University of Minnesota, and Brian Wright, University of California, Berkeley, USA.
     For the recipients of the samples and the farmers who have benefited from improved varieties, the value of conserving agrobiodiversity is obvious. The challenge is to find the funding required for a sustainable future for the CGIAR genebanks, and for ensuring a sustainable future for world agriculture in the process.

Table 1. CGIAR germplasm holdings and distributions in 2001
CGIAR Center (location)	Crop	Total of number accessions	Average annual dissemination
CIAT (Colombia)	Cassava	8,060	344
	Common bean	31,400	910
	Forages	24,184	8,969
	*Subtotal*	*63,644*	*10,223*
CIMMYT (Mexico)	Wheat	154.912	3.503
	Maize	25,086	8,177
	Subtotal	179,998	11,680
CIP (Peru)	Potato	7.639	4.330
	Sweet potato	7.659	1.970
	Andean roots, tubers	1.495	6
	Subtotal	16.793	6.306
ICARDA (Syria)	Cereal	60.013	10.907
	Forages	30.528	8.576
	Chickpea	11.219	5.200
	Lentil	9.962	3.804
	Faba bean	10.745	2.530
	Subtotal	122.467	31.017
ICRAF (Kenya)	Agroforestry trees	10.025	NA
ICRISAT (India)	Sorghum	36.721	4.272
	Pearl millet	21.392	2.077
	Pigeon pea	13.544	1.729
	Chickpea	17.250	5.951
	Groundnut	15.342	4.009
	Minor millets	9.252	316
	Subtotal	113.501	18.355
IITA (Nigeria)	Bambara groundnut	2.029	52
	Cassava	3.529	913
	Cowpea	16.001	2.766
	Yam	3.700	258
	Others	5.537	520
	Subtotal	30.796	4.509
ILRI (Kenya)	Forages	13.204	2.038
IPGRI/INIBAP (Italy)	Musa spp.	1.143	78
IRRI (Philippines)	Rice	99.132	9.017
WARDA (Ivory Coast)	Rice	15.377	842
CGIAR total		666.080	94.065
NA, not available. Source: Bonwoo Koo, Philip Pardey, and Brian Wright. 2003. The price of conserving agricultural biodiversity. Nature Biotechnology, 21 (2):126-128.