The global ex situ conservation system reflects the collective efforts of individual genebanks, each influenced by its unique history, opportunities for acquisition and user demands. As a result, acquisition activities in most genebanks have been opportunistic rather than strategic to support representation of national crop diversity or driven by clearly identified conservation priorities.

The objective of this study was to characterize the composition of national collections in 20 countries within the global ex situ conservation system. It assessed the representation of crop genetic diversity that originated nationally within the global system and evaluated the composition balance, as it relates to duplication and gaps in conservation. Across these 20 countries, numerous genebanks are conserving large number of accessions for only a few genera, while a much smaller number of genebanks are conserving fewer than 10 accessions from a broader range of genera. The findings indicate that ex situ conservation, both nationally and globally, has significant potential duplications and gaps in the genetic resource coverage.

Individual institutes in the global system must carefully reconsider the composition of their collections, especially given the significant costs and limited financial and human resources available for long-term ex situ conservation. As national genebanks and the global system become increasingly important resources for the future, it will be essential for genebanks to ensure that the composition of their collections meets future demands.

This study examined data from 20 national genebanks in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, the Near East and Asia to identify similarities and differences in genebank operations and processes, funding and facilities, as well as opportunities to strengthen their contributions to the global system of crop conservation and use. Data on genebank performance metrics were collected and used to assess compliance with FAO Genebank Standards. This enabled the analysis of trends in ex situ conservation of major food crops, locally important crops and crop wild relatives across national genebanks and the identification of shared challenges and opportunities to improve genebank operations and address funding gaps. All genebanks in the study failed to meet quality management standards and performance goals for the effective management of crop collections. The most pressing challenge for all national genebanks was the management and safety duplication of highly diverse collections in both seed and field genebanks, often with limited information available to guide best conservation practices. A further critical constraint was the fluctuating and often insufficient funding to support the wide range of tasks needed to secure and use this valuable national crop germplasm.

Efficient conservation and sustainable use of crop diversity is critical to support global food and nutritional security with ex situ collections stored in over 800 genebanks in 115 countries. The challenge is to manage those collections for long-term conservation of crop diversity and sustainable use to respond to global challenges of food security and climate change. The Genebank Standards for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agricutlure (Genebank Standards) form the overall framework for curation of ex situ crop collections, allowing considerable flexibility to develop customized approaches to conserving different crops. Stratified curation involves strategically tailoring curation to specific genebank goals, crops, priorities and resources for each accession based on all available information to prioritize accessions for long-term conservation. It implies using scarce resources where they are most needed and recognizes that accessions can be (a) fully curated to international standards; (b) partially curated for storage for a limited time; (c) archived and stored but no longer curated and available from the genebank; or (d) historical and removed entirely from the genebank. The stratified approach is consistent with the Genebank Standards and the policy framework of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Stratified curation encourages curators to make difficult decisions on accession management to better respond to challenges of curating large collections of crop diversity.