Cover Page
ANNUAL REPORT 2020
Rising to meet the challenges of our ever-changing world
Key figures
Diversity safety duplicated+82K
Seed samples added to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in 202082,501
Diversity data generated13
New crop-specific databases added in 202013
Grants provided for conservationUSD 30.9M
Grants were provided to fund conservation in 2020USD 30.9 million
Contributions to future diversityUSD 17.9M
Millions contributed to the Crop Diversity Endowment Fund in 2020USD 17.9 million
Diversity conserved736 K
Crop diversity samples managed by CGIAR genebanks as of 2020736,210
Diversity recorded3.3M
Records of genebank samples updated in Genesys in 20203,366,048
Diversity shared43K
Crop diversity samples distributed by CGIAR genebanks in 202043,530
Countries receiving samples78
Countries received crop diversity samples from CGIAR genebanks in 202078
Letters
What we did
A Decade of Wild Genetic Diversity
We’re already seeing the CWR Project’s benefits for smallholder and subsistence farmers. In China, Kazakhstan and Chile, for example, fields are flourishing with drought-tolerant varieties of alfalfa.
At the Cutting Edge of Pre-breeding
This project is using exciting new methods and tools, like speed breeding and genomics, to revolutionize the breeding of improved varieties of neglected crops, which will get climate-smart crops into the hands of smallholder farmers more quickly.
Delivering CWR-derived Varieties into Farmers’ Hands
Pre-breeding aims to isolate desired genetic traits from crop wild relatives and introduce them into breeding lines that are more readily crossable with modern seeds. Under the Crop Wild Relatives Project, new pre-bred lines are being evaluated under field conditions with breeders and farmers.
What we did
Safer Genebanks Today and Tomorrow
Genebanks faced major challenges in 2020, but, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of genebank staff, collections of crop diversity under the CGIAR Genebank Platform remain safe.
COVID-19 Effects
Pivoting to Digital-First Communications
All Crop Trust events in 2020 swiftly switched to digital, the team focused on increased outreach through partnerships with high-reach platforms to expand their reach and deliver messages to key audiences and communities. Participation in high-reach digital events increased views and reach substantially and, at the same time, dramatically cut travel and conference expenditures.
COVID-19 Effects
To maintain critical activities in 2020 under COVID-19 restrictions, our project partners were forced to take extraordinary measures—with some leaving family to stay on-site at their workplaces, ensuring that vulnerable plant materials and ongoing experiments would be looked after. It is because of these individual and collective sacrifices that project activities were able to continue at all in 2020.
Securing Our Food Forever
Funding Crop Diversity in Perpetuity
The Endowment Fund is an exciting idea to provide a sustainable, long-term financing mechanism and make possible the Crop Trust’s important work of safeguarding crop diversity in perpetuity.
