Gene Banks for Crop Germplasm: Preserving Agricultural Biodiversity for the Future

Gene Banks for Crop Germplasm: Preserving Agricultural Biodiversity for the Future

Urvashi Singhal
Policy Update

Background

India is known to be a country with high biodiversity and a vast array of domesticated crop species and their wild relatives. With more than 811 domesticated crop species and 902 crop wild relatives, the country has a central role in maintaining plant genetic resources that are crucial for agricultural resilience, food security, and fighting the consequences of climate change.

Crop genetic resources, alternatively known as germplasm, forms the basis of world food security. The resources constitute landraces, crop wild relatives, improved varieties, and breeding lines that harbor the potential for characteristics like disease resistance, drought tolerance, and nutritional enhancement. In the face of increasing threats brought about by climate change, habitat loss, and industrial agriculture, the conservation of these genetic resources has never been more critical than it is today.

Gene banks which are essentially  specialised institutions that collect, conserve, and distribute plant germplasm, play a significant role in preserving this biodiversity. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, during a post-budget webinar organized on 5 March 2025, had announced that a Gene Bank would be established to conserve the genetic resources of the country. The reason behind it is to make genetic resources and food security available to the next generations. 

The current National GenBank, which is coordinated by ICAR-NBPGR, holds more than 4.7 lakh accessions and helps in the international mission of PGR conservation through collaborations and allocations to researchers, breeders, and scientists. The bank has 12 regional stations countrywide for the collection and preservation of critical crop germplasms. These germplasms are the genetic components of plants or animals used in research, crop breeding, and conservation. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) have since become central to the sponsorship and facilitation of gene banks worldwide.

image 18

Source: https://www.dmapr.org.in/2018/11/18/field-gene-bank/

Functioning

Gene banks are primarily in operation through acquisition, conservation, characterisation, evaluation, and germplasm distribution.

  • Acquisition: Gene banks obtain samples from farmers’ fields, wild habitats, and schemes of breeding. The samples are ranked quite often on the basis of their distinctness, threat, and breeding value.
  • Conservation: Gene banks have two primary conservation approaches:
  1. Ex situ conservation: The germplasm is saved outside its ecosystem, mainly in seed banks, gene banks of the field, or in vitro and cryopreservation units.
  2. In situ conservation: Germplasm is conserved in their natural habitat, typically in collaboration with local communities and indigenous peoples.
  • Characterisation and Evaluation: After harvesting, each accession is screened for morphological, physiological, and molecular traits. The data enable breeders and scientists to identify useful traits.
  • Distribution and Use: Gene banks supply germplasm to scientists, farmers, and plant breeders, under conditions for equitable access and benefit-sharing.

Some of the well-known international gene banks are Norway’s Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the International Rice Gene Bank at IRRI (Philippines), and India’s National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR).

Performance

As of January 15, 2025, the bank already has 0.47 million accessions (plant material conserved and utilized for breeding) based on the ICAR-NBPGR database. These consist of cereals (0.17 million accessions), millets (more than 60,600 accessions), legumes (more than 69,200 accessions), oilseeds (more than 63,500 accessions) and vegetables (nearly 30,000 accessions).

Gene banks all over the world have made significant progress in assembling good collections of plant germplasm. The combined number of accessions in the CGIAR centers is around 770,000 and contributes to global breeding programs. The Ministry of Finance in the 2025-26 budget has proposed setting up a second National GenBank to preserve India’s crop diversity. The center will accommodate 10 lakh (1 million) germplasm lines, which will act as important conservation infrastructure for the public and private sectors engaged in genetic resource management.

Regeneration frequency: Seeds must be regenerated periodically to ensure viability, and high-performing banks follow strict protocols to minimize genetic drift. Trends in requests for germplasm are increasing, especially for climate resilience traits.

Impact

Gene banks have had profound and far-reaching impacts on agriculture, biodiversity conservation, and global food security. Their contributions are not only theoretical but are actively shaping how the world adapts to current and future challenges, especially climate change and population growth.

  • Support for Crop Improvement and Climate Adaptation
    By providing access to genetically diverse materials, they have enabled the development of crop varieties that can withstand environmental stresses. For example, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) used accessions from its gene bank to develop Sub1 rice varieties, which can survive up to two weeks of submergence. These varieties have been adopted by over 6 million farmers across South and Southeast Asia, significantly reducing yield losses due to floods (Mackill et al., 2012).
     Similarly, drought-tolerant maize, developed using materials from CIMMYT’s gene bank, has been released in over 13 African countries, benefiting more than 2.6 million households (CGIAR, 2021).
  • Preservation of Genetic Diversity and Cultural Heritage
    Gene banks conserve over 7.4 million accessions globally, with CGIAR centers alone safeguarding around 770,000 of these (FAO, 2021). These include landraces and wild relatives of crops—critical reservoirs of traits like pest resistance, nutritional enhancement, and environmental resilience. This conservation not only maintains biodiversity but also protects traditional knowledge systems associated with indigenous and local varieties.
  • Insurance Against Genetic Erosion and Catastrophic Loss
    The Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, often termed the “doomsday vault,” serves as a backup for over 1.2 million accessions from gene banks around the world (Crop Trust, 2023). It played a vital role in 2015 when the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) was able to re-establish its collection, lost during the Syrian conflict, using seeds previously deposited in Svalbard.
  • Strengthening Global Food Security
    The global interdependence on crop diversity is evident—countries grow crops whose origins lie elsewhere. According to Khoury et al. (2016), over 68% of national food supplies rely on crops from outside their own regions. This makes gene banks crucial for enabling the exchange of germplasm across borders and ensuring that every nation has access to the genetic diversity needed to secure food supplies.
  • Catalyzing Scientific Research and Genomics
    Gene banks also serve as the foundation for genomic studies and pre-breeding efforts. Initiatives like the DivSeek International Network and the GENESYS database provide researchers with open access to passport and characterization data, accelerating the discovery of useful alleles for complex traits such as heat tolerance or nutrient use efficiency.

Emerging Challenges

Although crucial to humanity, gene banks experience some emerging challenges:

  • Climate Change: Rising temperatures, unpredictable weather patterns, and natural disasters undermine field gene banks and make seed regeneration more challenging.
  • Digital Sequence Information (DSI): The increase in sharing genomic data has provoked questions of ownership, access, and benefit-sharing, particularly if physical germplasm is not shared.
  • Funding Gaps: Most national gene banks lack regular funding, impacting the conservation quality and documentation. 
  • Genetic Erosion: Ongoing loss of landraces on farms under commercialization and urbanization implies that not all diversity is being harvested.
  • Biopiracy and Intellectual Property Rights: Ethical issues are raised when developing countries’ genetic resources are patented or commercialized without fair compensation or recognition.
  • Technological Disparities: New storage technologies, such as cryopreservation, are costly and need trained people, who are not available in low-income areas.

Way Forward

To improve the strength and effectiveness of gene banks, a multi-faceted approach is needed:

  • Mainstream Climate Resilience: Gene banks should give high priority to the collection and conservation of germplasm that is well suited to future climate conditions.
  • Foster Community Participation: Collaboration with farmers and native communities is also likely to provide value to collections and ensure in situ conservation complements ex situ conservation.
  • Offer Long-Term Funding: Governments and international donors must guarantee long-term sources of funding to avoid reliance on project-specific funding.

References

About the contributor
Urvashi Singhal is a master’s student at DTU, simultaneously pursuing actuarial science. She is currently working as a research intern on an ICSSR project focused on menstrual leave policy. 

Acknowledgment 
The author extends her sincere gratitude to the IMPRI team and Ms. Aasthaba Jadeja for her invaluable guidance throughout the process.

Disclaimer: All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organisation.

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