This chapter follows the introduction of global conservation after government realization that the world’s genetic diversity needs protection. This came after the work of Vavilov in the 1920s. However, this road to realization has been rocky with short-term interests that have also meant poor funding for long-term storage and the battery of numbing technical conundrums that have caused genetic erosion within the gene banks to become a major problem. The great geo-botanist and ultimate plant explorer were the first to recognize genetic erosion as a global threat to food security, and saw seed keeping as a conservation strategy. Few heard the warnings of Vavilov, except for Harry Harlan, who warned that genetic erosion was taking place due
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The authors also stated that new advances in microbiology and new corporate opportunities in the seed industry, combined with the ecology movement that built up after the sixties, made germplasm conservation a social, political, economic, and corporate necessity. The chapter then discussed Erna Bennett, who coined the phrase ‘genetic conservation,’ and brought substance and strategy to the term for the world community because she recognized how little was being done. Consequently, she launched conservation work in the Near East centre of diversity identified by Vavilov. She also launched a newsletter, which influenced Otto Frankel to persuade the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment to adopt a resolution calling for a concerted global action on the conservation of crop genetic resources. This conference brought the issue of genetic conservation and a year before the gathering; the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations had cajoled industrialized countries into capitalizing on the glory of the green revolution by putting the agricultural research network that could sidestep the politics and bureaucracy of the UN …show more content…
Seeds of every crop and every variety of every crop will respond to life in a gene bank differently. No matter how tough the seed may be, a sample will eventually degenerate to a point where it must be rejuvenated. But these gene banks were in trouble came in 1979, discreetly confining their comments to terms like warehouse conditions, which were simply inadequate. Seeds are placed in gene banks not to preserve seeds as to preserve diversity, the variation within populations. Importantly, when germination rates fall too low or when the sample gets too small, the gene bank will remove some seeds from storage and grow them out to regenerate the sample. Regeneration can also affect the diversity of a sample, through differences in response to disease, insects, and weather; different levels of productivity; and human error. The idea of regeneration is not simple, as there are many factors that affect seeds
The authors also stated that new advances in microbiology and new corporate opportunities in the seed industry, combined with the ecology movement that built up after the sixties, made germplasm conservation a social, political, economic, and corporate necessity. The chapter then discussed Erna Bennett, who coined the phrase ‘genetic conservation,’ and brought substance and strategy to the term for the world community because she recognized how little was being done. Consequently, she launched conservation work in the Near East centre of diversity identified by Vavilov. She also launched a newsletter, which influenced Otto Frankel to persuade the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment to adopt a resolution calling for a concerted global action on the conservation of crop genetic resources. This conference brought the issue of genetic conservation and a year before the gathering; the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations had cajoled industrialized countries into capitalizing on the glory of the green revolution by putting the agricultural research network that could sidestep the politics and bureaucracy of the UN …show more content…
Seeds of every crop and every variety of every crop will respond to life in a gene bank differently. No matter how tough the seed may be, a sample will eventually degenerate to a point where it must be rejuvenated. But these gene banks were in trouble came in 1979, discreetly confining their comments to terms like warehouse conditions, which were simply inadequate. Seeds are placed in gene banks not to preserve seeds as to preserve diversity, the variation within populations. Importantly, when germination rates fall too low or when the sample gets too small, the gene bank will remove some seeds from storage and grow them out to regenerate the sample. Regeneration can also affect the diversity of a sample, through differences in response to disease, insects, and weather; different levels of productivity; and human error. The idea of regeneration is not simple, as there are many factors that affect seeds