Plant genetic resources constitute the biological basis for plant breeding and future agricultural development. Their transfer from developing to developed countries over centuries has sometimes been viewed as an example of exploitation, if not ‘biopiracy’. Modern gene flows are different in character and magnitude from historic exchanges, however. This article examines current patterns and finds that developing countries are major net recipients of germplasm samples from CGIAR centres, particularly if ‘improved materials’ are considered. Potentially problematic, intellectual property rights do not currently present major barriers to the availability and use of genetic resources by developing countries. Proposals to restrict flows and redress perceived injustices may reduce the benefits accruing at present to developing countries from germplasm exchanges.

-With the establishment of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) in 2001 as an inter-governmental coordinating body, concerted efforts have been made during the past decade to establish a global research infrastructure to facilitate the publishing, discovery, and access to primary biodiversity data. The participants in GBIF have enabled the access to over 377 million records of such data as of August 2012. This is a remarkable achievement involving efforts at national, regional and global levels in multiple areas such as data digitization, standardization and exchange protocols. However concerns about the quality and 'fitness for use' of the data mobilized in particular for the scientific communities have grown over the years and must now be carefully considered in future developments. This paper is the first comprehensive assessment of the content mobilised so far through GBIF, as well as a reflexion on possible strategies to improve its 'fitness for use'. The methodology builds on complementary approaches adopted by the GBIF Secretariat and the University of Navarra for the development of comprehensive content assessment methodologies. The outcome of this collaborative research demonstrates the immense value of the GBIF mobilized data and its potential for the scientific communities. Recommendations are provided to the GBIF community to improve the quality of the data published as well as priorities for future data mobilization.

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-There are more than 390 million primary biodiversity data records published by hundreds of data publishers through the GBIF network. Thus, the GBIF network is the single most comprehensive index for this kind of data. Ensuring or, at least assessing data quality is of capital importance for the reliability and usability of this data. While conducting a time data gap analysis on this mass of data, we have detected some issues with the way date information is processed and shared. Dates can be obscured or altered under certain circumstances, when a specific combination of publisher's error or date handling features, and faulty or inadequate date parsing and processing routines gets chained together. The extent of the date unreliability (either at the source or through GBIF portal) is relatively low, and problems are concentrated in a few data publishers. The types of errors and misprocessing in dates through the sources and the published records are analysed, impact on the overall data quality of the published index was assessed, and corrective measures are suggested.

Plant genetic resources are conserved so that they can be used to improve crop plant production and in other ways. However, it is often asserted that use of ex situ conserved germplasm is inadequate and that genetic diversity maintained in genebanks is underutilized. In part, this reflects an incomplete recognition of what constitutes use of plant genetic resources, and of the many different ways in which material from genebanks contributes to improved agricultural production. Based on recent information from surveys of distribution of germplasm from genebanks, and from surveys of users, we suggest that the evidence indicates that there is substantial use of ex situ conserved materials for a wide range of different uses. We suggest that barriers to use of ex situ conserved germplasm may often result from a lack in numbers of users, and from limitations in capacity to effectively utilize the genetic diversity present in genebanks to reduce genetic vulnerability and increase sustainability in modern production systems.