Help me out here. What is so “worthy of praise” about getting duplicates of several hundred wheat accessions from the USDA and ICARDA genebanks and putting them into another genebank? Surely the Tunisian genebank is up to much more praiseworthy stuff.
Seeds are being used as gifts to shape new social networks, the anthropologist in me guesses. Creating social capital, isn’t that worthy of praise?
If they want real social capital, they’ll fund collecting expeditions and share their gifts. Then we’ll all be in their debt.
Social networks, yeah that must be it.
The genebank has a capacity of 200,000 samples, 10X the current size. The exact purpose is not immediately evident.
Hi Guys,
What is wrong with repatriating germplasm? Isn’t your argument questioning the role of national genebanks and genetic sovereignty? Is Rome reviving its old rivalry with Carthage?
The success of Carthage was certainly related to the productivity of its agriculture, with genetic resources playing a significant role. Does Mago the Carthaginian ring a bell?
To me it makes sense to use a country’s own genetic resources as a founding stock for efforts to create the best locally adapted varieties for the future.
Are national genebanks the custodians of a nations germplasm, are they supposed to be plant introduction agencies or just there to procure germplasm for an international system?
It certainly would be interesting to do some critical evaluation of the repatriated material. Are accessions which are supposed to be identical still genetically indistinguishable? How good are the different genebanks in keeping the diversity alive that was originally collected?
I think that TUN is going to to come up with some interesting revelations…
Kind regards
Dirk
Nothing wrong with national programmes evaluating and using local germplasm. That’s their job. But do they necessarily have to carry out its long-term conservation, when that (and safety duplication) is already been adequately done elsewhere and they can get the material any time they want under the ITPGRFA? And even if they decide to do the long-term conservation, is it the act of repatriation itself that is the noteworthy thing, or the “interesting revelations” that you quite rightly say will be its eventual result?