Beans, , and Tropical Forages

The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) The CGIAR manage some of the largest, most diverse and “Each variety that comes to this genebank actively used collections of diversity in the world. These collections are publicly available and held on behalf could be critical for the future progress of the world community under the International Treaty on of farmers, breeders, the food production Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. sector and society as a whole.” CIAT is a CGIAR Center based in Colombia and holds Daniel Debouck international collections of beans, cassava, and tropical Genebank Manager forages. CIAT

The Genebank The international bean collection comprises more than The Use 37,000 samples, of which approximately 90% are CIAT has worked hard to make the beans, cassava, and cultivated Phaseolus vulgaris. The collection also has tropical forages material that they manage ready and significant numbers of other cultivated bean species, as well available to breeders, researchers and farmer who request as nearly 2,000 samples of wild Phaseolus species. seeds.

The cassava collection comprises more than6,000 In 2012, CIAT distributed more than 5,000 samples to samples, mainly material from the center of cassava CGIAR breeders and requesters in 27 different countries. diversity in the Americas, but with approximately 900 Nearly 71% of other distributions were sent outside of samples of wild cassava species. the CGIAR to national and regional collections, breeders, farmers, and the private sector. The CIAT tropical forage collection of more than23,000 samples is largely made up of forage legume species from Since 1973, CIAT distributed 562,574 samples of bean, the lowland tropics (below 1200 meters). In addition there cassava, and tropical forages to users around the world. are more than 2,000 varieties of African grasses and just over 800 varieties of multi-purpose trees and shrubs. CIAT and the Global Trust The Crop Trust is raising an endowment that will fully fund the global system for the conservation of crop diversity.

It takes nearly $3,000,000 for CIAT to carry out routine genebank operations and for project work like the Crop Wild Relatives project.

This funding is essential for the routine work to keep the cassava, bean and tropical forages collections alive and ready for use. The Crop Trust is also working with CIAT on a project that includes targeting and collecting wild species of bean that are not already in the collection.

The mission of the Crop Trust is to ensure the conservation and availability of crop diversity essential for food and agriculture, forever. By raising an endowment, the Crop Trust will cover the costs for an effective CIAT genebank. CIAT and Crop Wild Relatives Crop Wild Relatives (CWR) are the wild species and varieties that are closely related to and are increasingly important for their contributions to crop breeding efforts to adapt our agriculture to the climatic chaos of the future. Many scientists believe that Crop Wild Relatives hold the key to adapting our agriculture to climate change.

In the “Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change: Collecting, Protecting, and Preparing Crop Wild Relatives” project led by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, CIAT completed a gap analysis for 29 globally important crops. This gap analysis included distribution maps that show where Crop Wild Relatives are in need of collecting for conservation and use.

CIAT in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault CIAT has sent 47, 898 varieties of beans, cassava, and tropical forages to be conserved in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The seeds total to 19,589,200 and are stored in 142 boxes in the vault.

The Vault is located deep inside a mountain on a remote island in the Svalbard archipelago, halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole.

The purpose of the Vault is to store duplicates (backups) of seed samples from the world’s crop collections. Permafrost and thick rock ensure that the seed samples will remain frozen even without power. The Vault is the ultimate insurance policy for the world’s food supply, offering options for future generations to overcome the challenges of climate change and population growth.

For more information about CIAT, visit ciat.cgiar.org.