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Stories Cultivating a Brighter Future: How CIP’s Strategic Vision Transformed People’s Lives Biodiversity story Mobilizing genetic diversity to enrich agroecologies and livelihoods Crop improvement story Developing and delivering superior varieties that meet changing farmer and consumer demands Regenerative improvement story Improving farmers’ productivity and income, while building resilience in agricultural systems for sustainable and equitable growth Urban Food Systems story ADAPTING AGRICULTURAL AND FOOD INNOVATIONS TO IMPROVE URBAN DIETS AND LIVELIHOODS
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The International Potato Center’s (CIP) Genebank plays a pivotal role in the collection, characterization, and cryopreservation of genetic diversity, focusing on landraces and local varieties. Expanding beyond preservation, CIP aims to mobilize these genetic resources for the accelerated development of superior crop varieties, emphasizing closer collaboration in research and field activities.
The ambition is to share genetic diversity with public and private sectors to enhance breeding and research. At the same time, capacity development initiatives contribute to a robust genebank network. Rapid population growth, urbanization, and climate change are global challenges that strain food security, highlighting the importance of conserving and utilizing crop genetic diversity. CIP’s commitment extends to enriching its worldwide Genebank, agroecology, and livelihoods by promoting sustainable, diverse agriculture. With climate change escalating threats from pests and diseases, advanced genomics and data-driven breeding programs become essential for targeted trait development.
CIP advocates for a comprehensive strategy, combining in-situ and ex-situ conservation efforts, to ensure the long-term preservation of adapted and resilient genetic diversity
196 degrees below zero: conserving agrobiodiversity in the deep freeze
In response to advancing climate change and global population growth, crop breeders are striving to develop more productive varieties, resistant to disease, capable of growing in a changing climate, and with characteristics that farmers and consumers’ demand. Thus, they can strengthen food security and help smallholders thrive in a challenging future.
The key to developing these varieties lies in the vast genetic diversity of crops and their wild relatives, an agrobiodiversity primarily preserved in the world’s genebanks. At the heart of this effort is the International Potato Center’s (CIP) Genebank, which maintains the most diverse collections of potato, sweetpotato, and Andean roots and tubers in the world with 16,497 accessions from 83 countries (CIP Genebank database).
CIP has pioneered cryopreservation to conserve these clonal crops – conserving bits of plant tissue and organs at a temperature of -196°C. CIP maintains the world’s largest potato cryobank with more than 5,000 cryopreserved accessions. Cryopreservation is cheaper and more reliable than other clonal conservation methods in the long term and can preserve plants for centuries.
Recognizing the potential of this technology to strengthen the conservation of varied crops, CIP has launched an initiative to facilitate cryopreservation by Latin America’s genebanks. This regional cryopreservation network will enable communication, knowledge sharing, and backup storage of cryopreserved collections. Many participating institutions are already working to implement cryopreservation, with seven sending staff to CIP for training.
“Agrobiodiversity, and biodiversity in general, is huge in Latin America,” observed Rainer Vollmer, who leads CIP’s cryopreservation efforts. “The objective of this initiative is to guarantee the conservation of the genetic resources of the most important clonal and recalcitrant crops in the long term in a reliable way for the benefit of our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”
Through this collaborative network, the region’s genebanks can support each other and ensure the long-term preservation of adapted and resilient genetic diversity. CIP’s genebank and cryopreservation efforts are thus at the core of its Biodiversity Science Goal to mobilize genetic diversity and enrich agroecologies and livelihoods worldwide.
Mobilizing genetic diversity to enrich agroecologies and livelihoods
The International Potato Center’s (CIP) Genebank plays a pivotal role in the collection, characterization, and cryopreservation of genetic diversity, focusing on landraces and local varieties. Expanding beyond preservation, CIP aims to mobilize these genetic resources for the accelerated development of superior crop varieties, emphasizing closer collaboration in research and field activities.
The ambition is to share genetic diversity with public and private sectors to enhance breeding and research. At the same time, capacity development initiatives contribute to a robust genebank network. Rapid population growth, urbanization, and climate change are global challenges that strain food security, highlighting the importance of conserving and utilizing crop genetic diversity. CIP’s commitment extends to enriching its worldwide Genebank, agroecology, and livelihoods by promoting sustainable, diverse agriculture. With
climate change escalating threats from pests and diseases, advanced genomics and data-driven breeding programs become essential for targeted trait development.
CIP advocates for a comprehensive strategy, combining in-situ and ex-situ conservation efforts, to ensure the long-term preservation of adapted and resilient genetic diversity.
196 degrees below zero: conserving agrobiodiversity in the deep freeze
In response to advancing climate change and global population growth, crop breeders are striving to develop more productive varieties, resistant to disease, capable of growing in a changing climate, and with characteristics that farmers and consumers’ demand. Thus, they can strengthen food security and help smallholders thrive in a challenging future.
The key to developing these varieties lies in the vast genetic diversity of crops and their wild relatives, an agrobiodiversity primarily preserved in the world’s genebanks. At the heart of this effort is the International Potato Center’s (CIP) Genebank, which maintains the most diverse collections of potato, sweetpotato, and Andean roots and tubers in the world with 16,497 accessions from 83 countries (CIP Genebank database).
CIP has pioneered cryopreservation to conserve these clonal crops – conserving bits of plant tissue and organs at a temperature of -196°C. CIP maintains the world’s largest potato cryobank with more than 5,000 cryopreserved accessions. Cryopreservation is cheaper and more reliable than other clonal conservation methods in the long term and can preserve plants for centuries.
Recognizing the potential of this technology to strengthen the conservation of varied crops, CIP has launched an initiative to facilitate cryopreservation by Latin America’s genebanks. This regional cryopreservation network will enable communication, knowledge sharing, and backup storage of cryopreserved collections. Many participating institutions are already working to implement cryopreservation, with seven sending staff to CIP for training.
“Agrobiodiversity, and biodiversity in general, is huge in Latin America,” observed Rainer Vollmer, who leads CIP’s cryopreservation efforts. “The objective of this initiative is to guarantee the conservation of the genetic resources of the most important clonal and recalcitrant crops in the long term in a reliable way for the benefit of our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”
Through this collaborative network, the region’s genebanks can support each other and ensure the long-term preservation of adapted and resilient genetic diversity. CIP’s genebank and cryopreservation efforts are thus at the core of its Biodiversity Science Goal to mobilize genetic diversity and enrich agroecologies and livelihoods worldwide.