[MPWG] Doomsday vault to hold 2 million seeds - newspaper art icle FYI

[McCoy, Joe-Ann]

FYI:  On a positive note:   The Global Crop Diversity trust has been
established to attempt to address the problem of financing and supporting
seed banks in developing countries.  (They funded the Norwegian Project)

"The proceeds of the Trust, ultimately about $12 million per year, will
support basic conservation costs in national and international collections
of crop diversity. The Trust will also provide funding to rescue and salvage
collections currently at risk, and build capacity in developing countries to
manage such collections."

 

Glad to see so much interest in such an important topic!

Joe-Ann

 

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2004/51211/
<http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2004/51211/> 

 

Crop Trust to conserve plant diversity

Rich and poor nations sign on to save seeds worldwide

21 October 2004 Rome -- The Global Crop Diversity Trust, an initiative to
conserve in perpetuity the Earth's most crucial agricultural biodiversity,
entered into force today as an independent international organization. 

The Trust crossed a major milestone when Sweden signed the agreement
establishing it. This brings the number of signatories to 12 from 5 world
regions, thus exceeding the criteria for recognition under international
law. Sweden joins Cape Verde, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Mali,
Morocco, Samoa, Syria, Tonga, and Togo as Trust signatories. 

Along with its signature, Sweden pledged 50 million kroners, about $7
million, to the Trust. The Trust's newest donor joins more than a dozen
others, including Ethiopia, one of the 10 poorest countries in the world,
which recently pledged $50 000. This money will go toward building a $260
million Trust endowment, the proceeds of which will be used to fund the most
threatened and valuable collections of crop diversity. 

The launch of the Trust comes as plant diversity suffers record losses in
both farmers' fields and the wild. Extreme hunger and poverty also
contribute to diminished plant diversity in many parts of the world. Even
the genebanks that are intended to be safe havens for crop diversity are
under increasing threat from underfunding. 

"Rich and poor nations alike are signing on to support the Trust," said
Geoff Hawtin, the Trust's Executive Secretary. "This shows that they
recognize the urgency of protecting crop diversity collections for all
countries, whatever their level of development or region of the world." 

"Ethiopia is very rich in agricultural biodiversity but extremely poor in
financial resources," said Dr. Tewolde, Director General of the country's
Environmental Protection Authority and a member of the Trust's Interim
executive board. "The future for Ethiopians -- along with the rest of
humanity -- cannot be secure unless the future of agriculture is secured.
Therefore, we welcome the opportunity to help save the world's crop
diversity collections." 

"Sweden highly values agricultural diversity," said Mats Åberg, Deputy
Director at the Department of Global Development in the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. "The Nordic Genebank, of which we are part, has taken strong
measures to protect our region's diversity, and has extended cooperation to
collections in southern Africa as well as to our Baltic neighbours. But we
know it is not yet enough. Humanity's agricultural heritage must be
protected wherever it is found." 

Rescue and Salvage 

The goal of the Trust is to provide a secure and sustainable source of
funding for the world's most important crop diversity collections. There are
more than 1 400 crop diversity collections in more than 100 countries around
the world. These collections are the best source of the raw material farmers
and breeders need to develop hardy, dependable, productive and nutritious
crops. They contain traits that will allow crops to cope with climate
change, pests and disease, as well as to increase crop yields to feed the
ever-growing human population. 

The proceeds of the Trust, ultimately about $12 million per year, will
support basic conservation costs in national and international collections
of crop diversity. The Trust will also provide funding to rescue and salvage
collections currently at risk, and build capacity in developing countries to
manage such collections. 

"The majority of the world's crop collections are operating on extremely
tight budgets," said Hawtin. "Many developing countries find it difficult to
keep the electricity running, let alone support the activities needed to
ensure the safe long-term conservation of the crop diversity they hold. Yet
this diversity is critical in the fight against hunger," Hawtin added. 

Some have dubbed Ethiopia "a living seed basket" for its almost bewildering
variety of wild and domesticated varieties of seeds and grains. Ethiopia is
a primary gene centre for field crops such as niger seed (Guzotia
abyssinica), tef (Eragrostis tef) and Ethiopian mustard (Brassica carinata)
and a secondary gene centre for crops such as durum wheat, barley, sorghum,
finger millet, linseed, sesame, safflower, faba bean, field pea, chickpea,
lentil, cowpea, fenugreek and grasspea. Today, Ethiopia has 4.5 million
people who are facing food shortage. In 2002, Ethiopia struggled with the
worst famine since 1984 with some 15 million people facing starvation. 

Building on the past 

To date the Global Crop Diversity Trust has raised about $51 million towards
its goal with another $60 million under discussion. In addition to Ethiopia
and Sweden, donors include Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Egypt, the
United States of America, Switzerland, the Grains Research and Development
Council of Australia, Syngenta, Pioneer/Dupont, the Gatsby Foundation, the
Rockefeller Foundation, the Syngenta Foundation, the United Nations
Foundation, the World Bank, and the Future Harvest Centres. 

"FAO welcomes the establishment of the Global Crop Diversity Trust so soon
after the coming into force of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic
Resources for Food and Agriculture," said Louise Fresco, Assistant
Director-General of the FAO Agriculture Department. "The Trust will help
ensure that one of the key objectives of the Treaty -- the safe conservation
of crop diversity -- becomes a reality." 

"IPGRI is proud of the role it has played in bringing this historic
initiative into being," added Emile Frison, Director-General of the
International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI). "We look forward to
continuing to provide important technical support to the Trust as it
undertakes its critical task of underwriting the costs of conserving the
world's most important food crops." 

The effort to establish the Global Crop Diversity Trust was a joint
initiative of FAO and IPGRI on behalf of the Future Harvest Centres of the
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The Trust
is an element in the funding strategy of the International Treaty on Plant
Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which became law on 29 June
2004. 

  _____  


Contacts: 
John Riddle 
Information Officer, FAO 
john.riddle at fao.org 
(+39) 06 570 53259 

Ellen Wilson 
Business Communications 
ewilson at businesscommunications.com 
(+1) 301 652 1558, ext. 108 



 

 

 

Joe-Ann McCoy, Ph.D.

USDA-ARS Medicinal Plant Curator

North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station

G212 Agronomy Hall

Iowa State University

Ames, Iowa 50011-1170

USA

phone: 515-294-2297

fax: 515-294-1903

email:  <mailto:joemccoy at iastate.edu> joemccoy at iastate.edu

 

 <mailto:joemccoy at iastate.edu> 

  _____  

From: Cafesombra at aol.com [mailto:Cafesombra at aol.com] 
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 12:04 PM
To: mpwg at lists.plantconservation.org
Subject: Re: [MPWG] Doomsday vault to hold 2 million seeds - newspaper
article FYI

 

Saving genetic material is so important, and can be a very delicate
operation requiring appropriate super-specialized skills and technologies
(although you've got to admire the survival of a 2000-yr-old date seed...) 

 

I do think though that we need to maintain a balanced perspective and
reflect upon the need for genetic material repositories in the "developing"
south.  To my knowlegde (and perhaps this has changed and I'm unaware of new
developments, but,) a majority of seed banks are located in the developed
north, though they may contain quite a bit of genetic information from the
south.  It's true that society needs to move ahead with the best available
technologies in regard to genetic resource preservation, and the developed
north is frankly where the technology, money, and brainpower is (by
brainpower I mean trained specialists).  But my question is, when are some
resources going to head south to fund this type of thing?  Isn't it about
time?  Especially if we are going to throw the word "doomsday" around,
perhaps we should either consider moving to Norway, or, begin spreading
things around in a bit more balanced way.

 

I imagine if that ancient / newborn Judean date tree were able to say
something about this it might tell us to forget the doomsday bit...  or as
Bill McKibben wrote, "I for one intend to go out kicking..."

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