New Online Courses on Genebank Data Management
June 10, 2026
The Crop Trust and FAO launch two additional courses to support documentation, GGCE and Genesys training for genebank professionals.
The Crop Trust, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, has developed new online courses to support data management and documentation in genebanks.
Hosted on the FAO elearning Academy, the courses are free of charge and offer digital certification upon successful completion. They are designed for genebank staff, data managers, researchers, breeders, students and other professionals working with plant genetic resources for food and agriculture.
Good documentation is essential for the conservation and use of crop diversity. Accurate, complete and accessible data help genebanks manage collections, improve traceability, share information more effectively, and make germplasm easier to find and request.
The course Introduction to documenting plant genetic resources for food and agriculture introduces the principles of PGRFA documentation, including key data types, documentation systems, data standards such as MCPD and crop descriptors, the Passport Data Completeness Index, and considerations related to data sharing. Take the course here!
The course GRIN-Global Community Edition and Genesys introduces two complementary systems for managing and sharing ex situ PGRFA data. GGCE supports genebank operations such as accession and inventory management, viability testing, regeneration, multiplication and distribution. Genesys enables participating institutions to publish accession-level data, making it searchable and accessible to users worldwide. Take the course here!
The GGCE and Genesys course will also serve as a prerequisite for future Crop Trust workshops on data management, helping participants arrive with a shared understanding of key tools, concepts and terminology.
These courses are part of a broader FAO elearning series on data management for PGRFA, which also includes courses on the Global Information System and Global Crop Conservation Strategies.