• IN-SITU • EX-SITU • ON-FARM MANAGEMENT • PLANT BREEDING • PRE-BREEDING PGRFA Conservation Crop Improvement • QUALITY ASSURANCE • SEED ENTERPRISES • COMMUNITY-BASED SYSTEMS Seed Delivery Mechanisms for the conservation and sustainable use of PGRFA. Endorsed by the FAO Council in 2011, it provides a list of 18 priority activities that countries have committed to implement as means to con- serving and using PGRFA sustainably. The Second GPA therefore serves as the template for FAO’s engagement with member coun- tries on the conservation and sustainable use of PGRFA. FAO supports countries in the implementation of the Second GPA and has published the Guidelines for Developing a National Strategy for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture to aid countries in this regard. The World Information and Early Warning Systems on PGRFA (WIEWS) serves as platform for reporting on progress made by countries towards the implementation of the Second GPA. FAO also pub- lishes periodically the global status of the conservation and sus- tainable use of PGRFA with the Second Report on the State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. An overview of FAO’s work addressing the strengthening of coun- tries’ capacities for the conservation of PGRFA, crop improve- ment and seed delivery systems is presented below. CONSERVATION OF PGRFA FAO, through activities such as capacity building and backstop- ping to national programs, supports countries with the safe- guarding of the full range of diversity within particular species or taxa; the characterization of their genetic variation; the evaluation of the variants for agronomic performances and the provision of the associated data. PGRFA are conserved through three main ways: • In-situ, i.e. in their natural habitats in the wild. To aid countries in this endeavor, FAO has recently developed the Voluntary Guidelines on National Level Conservation of Crop Wild Relatives and Wild Food Plants. • On-farm, i.e. the maintenance of a wide diversity of PGRFA, including farmer varieties/landraces, as part of pro- duction systems; and • Ex-situ, i.e. in genebanks. FAO’s Genebank Standards for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture provide a com- pendium of best practices for safeguarding PGRFA as germplasm collections. They also include standards for the collecting, char- acterization, evaluation of genebank accessions. CROP IMPROVEMENT One means for improving productivities is the harnessing of genetic gains, i.e. the unlocking of the potentials encoded into the genetic blueprints of PGRFA. As evident from the work that FAO and partners carry out, this requires both the conserva- tion and the sustainable use of PGRFA. The organization’s sup- port to countries results in the development of improved and well-adapted crop varieties that meet end-user needs and are suited to the prevailing agro-ecologies and production systems. Farmer participation and the use of the most efficiency-en- hancing scientific and technological tools and procedures are emphasized. FAO convenes the Global Partnership Initiative for Plant Breeding Capacity Building (GIPB) as a multi-stakeholder platform aimed at improving institutional capacity for effective crop variety development and their distribution through seed systems. The e-learning course on pre-breeding is a capacity building tool developed through the GIPB which is aimed at widening the genetic base of the repertoire of parents used in plant breeding programmes. The underlying principle is that the broader the genetic diversity of crops and their varieties, the more resilient the crop production system. DELIVERY OF QUALITY SEEDS AND PLANTING MATERIALS FAO strives to ensure that a responsive mechanism is in place to enable farmers have access to quality seeds and planting materials of a diverse suite of crop varieties that they need to grow. The mechanisms include different forms and scales of seed enterprises and community-based production and distribution systems and the institutional means for quality assurance. Recognizing the very important, and usually complementary, roles of both the public and private sectors, FAO’s interventions target both the informal and formal seed delivery systems. FAO therefore works with government agencies, research and breed- ing institutions, seed enterprises and community based organ- izations in the development and operation of a sustainable seed sector value chain. FAO, through its work on seed delivery, supports an aver- age of more than 30 countries annually with strengthening of institutional and human capacities. The usual interventions include the development, implementation, harmonization and revisions of national and regional seed policies, laws and regula- tions. Typically, the instruments govern variety registration and release, plant variety protection, seed production, certification, packaging and labelling, marketing and biosafety. A useful tool that FAO has developed recently in this regard is the Voluntary Guide for National Seed Policy Formulation. Figure: A schematic representation of the continuum approach to the management of PGRFA illustrating the three seamless dovetailing and mutually enriching modules: Conservation of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGRFA), Crop Improvement and Seed Delivery. PGRFA conservation provides the raw materials used in breeding improved crop varieties which requires a functional seed system in order to contribute to improved productivities on farmers’ fields. For more information, go to www.fao.org. 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