From working collections to the World Germplasm Project: agricultural modernization and genetic conservation at the Rockefeller Foundation

Abstract

This paper charts the history of the Rockefeller Foundation’s participation in the collection and long-term preservation of genetic diversity in crop plants from the 1940s through the 1970s. In the decades following the launch of its agricultural program in Mexico in 1943, the Rockefeller Foundation figured prominently in the creation of world collections of key economic crops. Through the efforts of its administrators and staff, the foundation subsequently parlayed this experience into a leadership role in international efforts to conserve so-called plant genetic resources. Previous accounts of the Rockefeller Foundation’s interventions in international agricultural development have focused on the outcomes prioritized by foundation staff and administrators as they launched assistance programs and especially their characterization of the peoples and “problems” they encountered abroad. This paper highlights instead how foundation administrators and staff responded to a newly emergent international agricultural concern—the loss of crop genetic diversity. Charting the foundation’s responses to this concern, which developed only after agricultural modernization had begun and was understood to be produced by the successes of the foundation’s own agricultural assistance programs, allows for greater interrogation of how the foundation understood and projected its central position in international agricultural research activities by the 1970s.

Gene Banks, Seed Libraries, and Vegetable Sanctuaries: The Cultivation and Conservation of Heritage Vegetables in Britain, 1970–1985

“…Apparently convinced that what was needed to ensure the long‐term preservation of vegetable diversity was well beyond the current capacities of HDRA, Hills began searching for an organization that would back the creation of a vegetable seed repository. He envisioned that this operation would gather and preserve vegetable varieties from around the world, just as international organizations had launched collections of key crops such as wheat, maize, and rice (Curry ). Unlike those comparable seed banks, however, the ideal vegetable repository envisioned by Hills would function as both a “bank” and a “library.” The bank would be accessible only to HDRA staff and horticultural professionals and would preserve seed in long‐term cold storage facilities.…”

Development of nuclear microsatellite markers to facilitate germplasm conservation and population genetics studies of five groups of tropical perennial plants with edible fruits and shoots: rambutan (Nephelium lappaceum L.), sapodilla (Manilkara zapota (L.) P. Royen), lychee (Litchi chinensis Sonn.), mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana Linn. and Garcinia cochinchinensis (Lour.) Choisy) and bamboo (Bambusa vulgaris Schrad. ex J.C. Wendl and Guadua angustifolia Kunth)

“…One of the biggest challenges for germplasm collections is the molecular characterization of accessions and their preservation from genetic erosion (Barcaccia 2009). Molecular markers are critical to determine the genetic diversity within collections and in the wild, as well as to select core collections of manageable size that represent the genetic diversity of the collection while maintaining allele specificity and accession rarity (Curry 2017;Reyes-Valdes et al 2018). Microsatellites (or SSRs-Simple Sequence Repeats-), are one of the most widely used molecular markers in genetic studies, such as population genetics, molecular breeding, and paternity testing (Ellegren 2004).…”

‘Warehouse’ or research centre? Analyzing public preferences for conservation, pre-breeding and characterization activities at the Czech genebank

“…Their observations lead to collection efforts for ex situ conservation of these materials in genebanks (Scarascia-Mugnozza and Perrino 2002). In the second half of the twentieth century, a global network of genebanks was established as part of the CGIAR, in part to address the observation that agricultural modernization and the spread of modern varieties were in the process of replacing the enormous diversity of traditional varieties cultivated in developing countries (Curry 2017). Today, crop diversity is conserved in a global system of national and international genebanks, with much of the diversity shared internationally through the Multilateral System of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.…”