Thirty percent of ILRI genebank collections now safely duplicated at the global seed vault in Norway

Alieu Sartie, ILRI genebank manager (right) and technician Solomon Fikre checking forage seed samples before delivery to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (photo credit:ILRI/Lei Sun).

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is home to the world’s only genebank dedicated wholly to forages.

Located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the ILRI Forage Genebank is one of 11 genebanks within CGIAR, a global partnership of 15 international research centres working with national and other partners for a food-secure future. The CGIAR genebanks are located in countries that are ‘centres of origin’ of key crops to make optimal use of the natural diversity of indigenous plants.

Last month, the genebank delivered a second set of 389 accessions of 69 species representing 25 forage genera to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway for safety duplication. The accessions are part of the Annex 1 germplasm of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture that are held by…