Importance of conservation

TED talk of Cary Fowler: One seed at a time, protecting the future of food

The varieties of wheat, corn and rice we grow today may not thrive in a future threatened by climate change.

Cary Fowler takes us inside a vast global seed bank, buried within a frozen mountain in Norway, that stores a diverse group of food-crop for whatever tomorrow may bring.

Watch this great talk and learn about these urgent issues by clicking here.

Using fodder and forage crops

From germplasm to feed: putting ILRI’s genebank to work.

This video deals with the need to carry out research to better use forages to meet the needs for feeds in a changing environment with reducing grazing lands and shrinking farm size to meet increasing demand for crop and feed production. It covers the importance of using forage germplasm for gene discovery to mitigate diseases and identify drought tolerant materials that are better adapted to smallholder farmers needs.

 You can also watch this video, and many other videos produced by ILRI, online by clicking here.

Part 1 (5 MB)

Part 2 (7 MB)

Part 3 (5 MB)

Conserving fodder and forage crops

The ILRI genebank: Saving forage crops for livestock and their keepers.

This video deals with the importance of conserving forages using accepted standards and best practices as global public goods in trust under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. It covers the importance of conserving forage diversity for now and the future to use to address adaptation to diseases and climate change.

You can watch this video, and many other videos produced by ILRI, online by clicking here.

Part 1 (4 MB)

Part 2 (4 MB)

Part 3 (5 MB)

From ILRI to Svalbard

ILRI and other members of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) are storing their vast seed collections in the new Svalbard global seed vault in Norway as a safety backup. This natural freezer, located in the Arctic Circle, will preserve seeds of these plant varieties for many years. This effort is part of a global commitment under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The benefits are universal.
ILRI’s forage diversity project leader, Jean Hanson, says, ‘The 18,000 seed and plant samples held in trust in the ILRI genebank are tested to help scientists deliver appropriate fodders and forages for millions of poor milk and meat producers.'

In January 2008 ILRI shipped 4000 samples of tropical fodders and forages to Norway’s Svalbard Global Seed Vault. These samples duplicate specimens from ILRI’s vast collection of African forages, the largest and most diverse in the world.

Watch the ILRI video below about their shipment to Svalbard (5MB)

or click here to view this and other ILRI videos online.