By christelle.rabil@croptrust.org
July 28, 2026

How SSE USA and ITRA Togo navigate the path to standardized data in Genesys.

When accession data is visualized in Genesys, it follows the same general structure. Users can filter it by crop, biological status, collecting locations and other passport data, or use tools such as the Subsetting Tool to identify potentially useful material to request or data to download and use for further analysis. 

On the screen, the data looks uniform but behind the screen, every dataset has its own story. The partners publishing data through Genesys differ greatly in their histories, resources, collections and internal data-management practices. Some have maintained seed collections and databases for decades. Others are establishing new collections, digitizing records for the first time or developing the systems needed to manage their material over the long term.

Two recent data updates illustrate this contrast particularly well: one from Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) in the United States and another from the Institut Togolais de Recherche Agronomique (ITRA), in Togo.

In Genesys, their data is standardized and presented through the same interface. Their paths to getting it there could hardly be more different.

SSE: Updating an established collection

Founded in 1975, SSE has grown from a small network of gardeners into the largest nongovernmental seed bank of its kind in the United States. Its collection focuses on heirloom and open-pollinated food crops, preserving not only genetic diversity but also the family histories, migration stories and culinary traditions connected to many varieties.

The collection is particularly rich in garden crops, including tomato, bean, pepper, apple, squash, pea, lettuce, maize and potato. Although it is rooted primarily in the United States, its material reflects a much wider agricultural heritage, with accessions originating from countries across Europe, Asia, North America and beyond.

 

The organization also plays an active role in long-term global conservation. It is the only genebank that has deposited seeds at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault every year since the facility opened in 2008, providing an additional safeguard for both the genetic material and the histories carried by its collection.

SSE first published accession data in Genesys in 2015, after signing a Data Provider Agreement with the Crop Trust.

For several years, SSE maintained and updated its Genesys records using the Genesys uploader tool. This tool allows data providers to prepare accession data in a spreadsheet, review how fields correspond to the Genesys passport-data standard and upload the records directly.

More recently, SSE has been carrying out a detailed internal review of its collection and its associated data. As part of this work, staff have been conducting an inventory and revisiting the status of individual accessions. Some records have been classified as historical, while others have been corrected or updated as new information became available.

At the same time, SSE began transitioning its data to GGCE, the internal data-management system developed by the Crop Trust. This created an opportunity to streamline the way the organization maintains and publishes its data. Instead of continuing to manage one version of the data internally and another set of upload files for Genesys, the updated passport records are now maintained in GGCE and published from there.

As part of the transition, the records that had previously been uploaded through spreadsheets were replaced with an updated dataset published directly from GGCE. SSE now makes data on more than 29,000 accessions available through Genesys. 

ITRA Togo: Building a collection in parallel to its data system 

The journey of ITRA in Togo begins from a very different starting point. Rather than migrating an established collection from a longstanding internal database, ITRA is developing both its crop collection and the systems used to document it at the same time.

ITRA became involved with the Crop Trust through Securing Our Seeds. The project supports partner institutions in strengthening the foundations of genebank data management, including the digitization of collection information, the provision of essential equipment and the adoption of GGCE as an internal data-management system.

ITRA is one of ten project partners participating in this area of work. Its inclusion offers an important opportunity to establish good data-management practices from the beginning of a collection’s development. Rather than first accumulating records across multiple files or disconnected systems and consolidating them later, ITRA is building its documentation workflows around a dedicated collection-management system from an early stage.

This includes recording passport data in a structured form, applying agreed standards, assigning identifiers, documenting inventory and reducing the risk of inconsistencies being carried forward as the collection grows.

As the collection develops, ITRA’s experience will also provide useful lessons for other institutions establishing or formalizing genebank operations. Sharing such lessons among project partners is an important part of the Securing Our Seeds project.

The 300+ accessions now available in Genesys represents an early but significant result of that work. It gives users access to information about the material being conserved while also marking an important step in the development of the collection itself.

The same interface, different realities

When viewed in Genesys, the records from SSE and ITRA are presented in the same standardized environment. This consistency is one of the strengths of Genesys. It allows data from very different institutions to become discoverable and usable through a common platform.

At the same time, the apparent uniformity of the records can conceal the work required to produce them. One institution is consolidating and transitioning. The other is building and expanding. Both are working towards the same broader objective: ensuring that crop diversity is properly documented, managed and made accessible.

GGCE has played an important role in both journeys. For SSE, it provided a new internal home for passport data that had previously been maintained through another system and periodically uploaded to Genesys using spreadsheets. For ITRA, it is helping establish a structured data-management environment from the early stages of the collection’s development.

Explore the data published by ITRA Togo here and by SSE USA here and stay tuned for more updates!