Strategic Action Towards 2030
The year 2024 marked the first full year during which the Crop Trust was guided by the 2030 Strategic Plan: Food Forever. The Strategic Plan was put in place to achieve the organization’s vision of a world in which crop diversity is securely conserved for the long term and used to transform agrifood systems to be more sustainable, resilient and healthy.
Central to this vision is an effective global system of genebanks that secures millions of accessions of crop diversity, makes them available to each other and enables use by farmers, researchers and plant breeders to feed the world sustainably, forever.
In 2024, our work aligned with the goals set out in the Strategic Plan.
Goal 1
Long-term Support for the Maintenance of Essential Genebank Operations
This goal is focused on permanently covering the costs of essential operations of all international genebanks recognized under Article 15 of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (International Plant Treaty) by 2030. Our work in this area depends on our Endowment Fund, a sustainable, long-term financing mechanism designed to support the vital work of genebanks. The value of the Endowment Fund increased from USD 305 million in 2024 to USD 357 million.
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During the year, the Crop Trust continued its ongoing support for Article 15 genebanks through long-term partnership agreements (LPAs) with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (The Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). In 2024, AfricaRice became eligible for an LPA, which will support its genebank starting in 2025. These agreements cover a major portion of the annual costs of the essential operations of the collections in question.
In 2024, the Crop Trust continued to support 15 additional international genebanks’ unique crop collections through long-term grants. These are designed to foster and support the genebanks’ efforts to meet performance targets that would trigger qualification for an LPA.
In 2024, the Crop Trust also continued to enhance data management in genebanks. GRIN-Global Community Edition (GGCE) is freely accessible, open-source software that enables genebanks to optimize their internal genebank data management. Genesys is an online platform with information on millions of accessions from hundreds of genebanks. The Endowment Fund supports the development of both platforms to connect the network of genebanks digitally through data.
Goal 2
Time-bound Support for the Upgrading, Collecting and Use of Crop Diversity
The Crop Trust also provides project support for upgrading genebank facilities, conserving threatened crop diversity in genebanks and enhancing the availability of crop diversity. Thanks to the contributions by our generous donors, we continued implementing key projects:
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- Seeds for Resilience, a project that supports national genebanks in African countries, made sound progress by planning infrastructure upgrades, providing specialized training, and implementing GGCE to improve operations and safety duplication of seed collections, including almost 1,500 accessions sent to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in 2024.
- The Sweetpotato Project continued to multiply samples of this important crop in Madagascar and Zambia and provided almost 70,000 clean vines of diverse landraces to farmers in those countries. Farmers report good yields from the project’s vines, even in areas of extreme drought. Sixty-four landraces from partner countries were sent to the International Potato Center (CIP) in Lima for long-term storage, more than double the project’s target.
- The 10-year Biodiversity for Opportunities, Livelihoods and Development (BOLD) project, which began in 2021, forged ahead with capacity development of national genebanks in 15 partner countries. A research program led by the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) explored how to make crop diversity more readily accessible to farmers by ensuring that genebanks are better integrated in seed systems. Workshops in Uganda, Ecuador, Bhutan and Tanzania produced seed system assessment reports to inform pilot projects to strengthen linkages between genebanks and seed systems. BOLD partners deposited safety duplicates of their seed collections into the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
- The BOLDER initiative, part of the BOLD project, ramped up with stakeholder consultations in four African countries to select nutritious, climate-resilient and environment-friendly opportunity crops for conservation and promotion.
- The Power of Diversity Funding Facility launched with a pilot project funded by the Governments of Germany and Ireland to tap the potential of opportunity crops in Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean.
Related news and resources
Support for National Genebanks Underway
Seeds maintained in genebanks worldwide are the foundation of our future food and nutrition security.
16 Jun 2022
Strengthening Genebanks in Ecuador and Peru
A team of experts traveled to Ecuador and Peru to review the national genebanks in a visit organized by the Crop Trust under the Biodiversity for Opportunities, Livelihoods and Development (BOLD) Project.
Ecuador and Peru are...
11 Aug 2022
Sarada Krishnan, the Crop Trust’s new Director of Programs, talks about BOLD
Sarada Krishnan joined the Crop Trust as Director of Programs at the beginning of July 2022. Prior to joining the Crop Trust, Sarada was Director of Horticulture at the Denver Botanic Gardens in the USA.
In August 2022, she...
8 Sep 2022
Yemen Genebank Receives Emergency Funding
The National Genetic Resources Center (NGRC) in Yemen is the first genebank to receive funds from the new Emergency Reserve for genebanks facing urgent threats to their precious collections of crop diversity.
The Emergency...
9 Dec 2022
