SADC seed bank now holds 18 000 collections

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Sifelani Tsiko ---
The SADC Plant Genetic Resource Centre now holds more than 18 000 diverse crop and wild relative accessions as the bloc steps up efforts for the long term conservation of germplasm collections and how to deal with problems caused by a changing and unpredictable climate.

SADC PGRC official, Thandi Lupupa told the Southern Times this week on the sidelines of the Africa Stakeholders Consultative Meeting on Farmers’ Rights under the FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) that the increase in collections for traditional crop varieties and wild species was critical as more varieties were being lost through genetic erosion.

The Community Technology Development Trust, a Harare-based NGO co-hosted the event.

“The SADC PGRC has collected more than 18 000 local crops and wild crop relatives as part of the group’s efforts to safeguards its plant genetic material,” she said.

“These are for conservation purposes and forms our base collection for the long term. Each individual member states is collecting for the short term but here we strive to safeguard genetic material for the long term.”

All 15 SADC countries send their crop and wild plant seeds to the SADC PGRC for safe keeping and for sharing for the common public good.

Most traditional varieties and other wild species are being lost through genetic erosion as farmers adopt new varieties and cease growing the varieties that they have nurtured for generations.

Eventually, they lose these varieties leaving most crop and wild species threatened with extinction as their habitats are destroyed by human disturbance.

The SADC PGRC works to ensure the long-term preservation of crop seed biodiversity as a part of the regional and global strategy for the conservation of crop genetic resources.

“The process is on-going and we are doing it as funds allow,” Lupupa said. “We need to promote on-site conservation of plant materials in all member states to help our farmers adapt to the changing climatic conditions and enhance crop diversity for food and nutritional needs.”

The SADC PGRC works closely in partnership with national programs and regional and international organiations worldwide to save seeds from farmers’ fields and from the wild.

The collections of plant genetic materials provide raw materials to scientists and plant breeders who are working to improve or adapt crops to meet changing food needs.

Established in 1989, the SADC PGRC coordinates with seed bank centres in each of the member states to conserve and preserve the genetic diversity and viability of Southern African plant stocks.

The centre also supports research, documentation and training, and education on plant genetic resource management and conservation.

Lupupa says the preservation of plant stocks is achieved through the collection, documentation and long term storage of seed samples, known as accessions.

SADC member states now hold more than 44 000 accessions, with genetic material collected from local farms and in the wild.

To-date, the SADC PGRC has sent a quarter of its samples to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway.

Sending seed reserves to the global seed bank, Lupupa said, helps ensure that genetic variability is not lost by providing a buffer to local agriculture against shocks such as drought, flood and civil war.

“We have sent a quarter of the collections to the global conservation bank. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault acts as a black box for SADC in case we lose our collections due to drought, floods and civil unrest. It’s our bank of last resort for seed.”

The SADC gene bank, located in Lusaka, Zambia stores seeds of hundreds of crop and other wild varieties at sub-zero temperatures for up to 50 years. Every five years the collection is tested for germination ability.

Genetic experts say crops need new protection every 15 years because pests and diseases develop around their existing defences.

They say the only effective way to safeguard them is to inter-breed them with other strains, often wild ones.

They further say that careful maintenance of the SADC and Africa's genetic resources is vital.

“Genes provide the raw materials for development of new pharmaceutical, agricultural and industrial products,” Lupupa further said.

“The SADC PGRC is committed to making a large part of its genetic resources accessible to the region and the world for both research and agriculture. We have to scale up our activities to save our plant genetic materials from extinction.”

There is growing concern about the fate of seed collections at national, regional and international level due to numerous factors.

Climate change, war, floods, drought, lack of adequate funding for seed banks, lack of awareness and poor support for research and plant breeding for farmers are posing a threat to all efforts to safeguard seed stocks.

“Farmers are no longer willing to give out much plant genetic materials due to drought and climate change problems,” Lupupa said.

“The quantity for some crop varieties is quite small and farmers are not willing to give us as much as we want.”

In addition, she said poor funding to national genetic resources centres within the SADC region has crippled preservation and conservation programmes for seed.

“Some centres have obsolete equipment for preserving and conserving PGR. The equipment is old and we need more funding to buy new equipment such as driers, packaging machines and others,” SADC PGRC official said.

“Most of the equipment needs to be imported and resources are simply not there for equipment imports.”

Agricultural experts say fewer crop species are feeding the world than 50 years ago - raising concerns about the resilience of the global food system.

They warn a loss of diversity meant more people were dependent on key crops, leaving them more exposed to harvest failures.

Higher consumption of energy-dense crops could also contribute to a global rise in heart disease and diabetes, they added.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the diversity of cultivated crops declined by 75 percent during the 20th Century and a third of today's diversity could disappear by 2050.

SADC too, is losing plant genetic material.

Lupupa said plant genetic materials facing extinction in the region included labour –intensive crops such bambara, green gram, sesame, round potato (Zulu potato) and a wide range of indigenous maize, sorghum and millet varieties.

“The erosion is quite noticeable for bambara,” she said. “It’s no longer common on the market. Farmers have played a big role in safeguarding traditional crops and we need to support them to save seeds that increasingly coming under threat.

“As a region, we need to promote indigenous crops, their continuous conservation and use for now and the future. Our crops are attached to our culture. If we lose them, then we are also losing part of ourselves.”

The global seed vault - which opened on the Svalbard archipelago between Norway and the North Pole in 2008 protects a diverse range of crop seeds such as beans, rice, maize, and wheat against the worst cataclysms of nuclear war or disease.

It has more than 860 000 samples, from almost all nations.

This vault is fully funded by the Norwegian government, with the responsibility for operations assigned to The Ministry of Agriculture and Food.

There are about 1 700 seed banks around the world. These seed banks conserve over 7 million seed samples, some of which are rare and unique to particular regions.

If anything goes wrong in any of these facilities, diversity could be lost.

To insure against this possibility seeds from all over the world are sent to Svalbard for long-term storage.

The seeds within the Svalbard Global Seed Vault are copies of seed samples stored in the other seed banks. The vault owns and operates the facility while the depositing banks own the collections they deposit.

To date, Syria and Afghanistan, have accessed plant genetic resource materials that was destroyed and looted during the war in the two countries.

Looters destroyed hundreds of samples of Afghanistan's rich agricultural heritage which included samples of wheat, barley, chickpea, lentil, melons, pistachio, almond, pomegranate, other fruits, and pasture crops.

Many of the seed samples were of traditional farmers' varieties, bred over generations to prosper under particular local conditions, and tailored to the tastes of Afghan consumers.

Conserving plant genetic materials acts as a bridge for the current and future generations and ensures global food security.

Without safeguarding the crop materials and sharing the benefits, the world could go hungry.