New funding will ensure the future of seed banks around the world that house over 700,000 samples of crop, forage and agroforestry resources.

Science Codex reports on an agreement between the Global Crop Diversity Trust and the CGIAR Consortium that will provide USD 109 million over five years for the CGIAR Research Program for Managing and Sustaining Crop Collections.

The genebanks held by 11 different CGIAR research centers constitute the world's largest and most diverse collections of wheat, maize, rice, potato, banana, sorghum, forages, beans and many other plants.

With agriculture facing unprecedented changes, the diversity held in genebanks will be essential to providing new crop varieties that may be vital to overcoming weather- and pest-related threats. “In the past 10 years, the genebanks have distributed more than one million samples to plant breeders and crop researchers; a process that has saved millions of lives globally through the development of new, resilient crop varieties,” says the article.

Those within the CGIAR network of centres say the genebanks underpin their agricultural research and the materials they contain have to be maintained in optimal conditions. Threats to the genebanks include inadequate funding, political unrest (as was seen recently in Syria where the collection had to replicated or relocated to other centers) and weather disasters.

This new partnership will see an additional 56,000 samples added, including a large number of wild relatives of cultivated crops.

While the genebanks have funding for the next five years, it is hoped that during that time the CGIAR Consortium will manage to secure more permanent funding arrangements.

Read the full story: Pact invests US $109 million to secure critical genetic material, maintain global food production