In a report launched today at the World Summit of Sustainable Development Professor Jeff Waage, Head of Imperial’s Department of Agricultural Sciences has warned that many “genebanks”, responsible for maintaining collections of diverse crops, are now unable to fulfil basic conservation functions due to lack of funding.

The report compares data from 99 countries collected by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in 2000 to similar data collected from over 150 countries in 1996. It found that genebank budgets have been cut in 25% of countries and remained static in another 35%.

Samples held in genebanks must be periodically planted and new seed harvested in order to keep the stock viable. Over half of developing countries and 27% of develop countries have reported an increase in the number of plant samples urgently in need of this re-generation with the backlog being a strong indication of under-resourcing. “Most people assume the crop diversity that scientists have collected from cultivated fields is safe,” said Professor Waage, “we found that this is not necessarily the case. In fact, many genebank collections are in a precarious state.”

Genebanks hold a significant portion of the world’s agricultural heritage. The UN FAO estimates that about three quarters of the original varieties of agricultural crops have been lost from farm fields since 1900.