New passport data from three African national genebanks
17 March 2022
Partner genebanks of the Crop Trust-led Seeds for Resilience project publish the first batches of data in Genesys.
Sub-Saharan Africa is facing the combined challenges of climate change, malnutrition and a rising population. In order to help drive more resilient and diversified food production, the Seeds for Resilience project (SFR) works with national genebanks of Nigeria, Zambia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Ghana to improve the conservation, availability and use of their collections of key crops such as sorghum, millets and cowpea.
The national genebanks of Kenya and Nigeria first joined Genesys in May 2017 and November 2018, respectively. The national genebanks of Zambia, Ghana and Ethiopia have more recently also become data providers. The latest passport data updates in Genesys come from three of these genebanks.
Ghana
CSIR-PGRRI, the national genebank of Ghana, uploaded data on around 800 new accessions of rice crop wild relatives, as well as various vegetables and grains.
These landrace and wild accessions were collected from fields, farm stores, markets and gardens in Togo, Benin and Ghana.
The data on these accessions shared on Genesys include geographical coordinates of the collection sites, storage conditions, biological status of the accessions as well as their legal status with regards to the Multilateral System (MLS) of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.
Explore CSIR-PGRRI’s new passport data here.
Zambia
NPGRC, the national genebank of Zambia, shared passport data on their earliest collections of wild and cultivated rice. Around 60 wild rice accessions were collected between 1993 and 1996, and around 300 cultivated rice accessions were collected between 1981 and 2014 from farms and wild habitats in Zambia.
The genebank shares in Genesys the geographic coordinates of the collection sites, as well as the biological status and storage types of their accessions.
Explore NPGRC’s new passport data here.
Nigeria
NACGRAB, the national genebank of Nigeria, uploaded passport data on around 2,200 new accessions of various crops, such as sorghum, pearl millet and amaranth.
Accessions have either been collected from Nigeria’s markets, shops and farms between 1992 and 2020, or donated to the genebank by ICRISAT and IITA.
Around 10% of these accessions are safely duplicated in the Millenium Seed Bank, Kew and at ICRISAT. Almost all accessions are conserved in both short- and long term seed storage.
Explore NACGRAB’s passport data here.
We expect new data from Ethiopia and Kenya genebanks in the coming months.
Seeds for Resilience is a five-year project funded by the Federal Government of Germany through the German Development Bank (KfW), and led by the Crop Trust. More information on the project.