Information on plant genetic resources is essential for a country to make decisions on planning and implementing PGR activities, for conserving, sustainably using, and benefiting from the PGR existing in a country The need for countries to develop, maintain and exchange such information is recognized in the CBD (Articles 7d,and 17), and in the Global Plan of Action (priority activities 17 and 18). The GPA assessment indicated that many of the world’s plant genetic resources (PGR) for food and agriculture are insufficiently and/or poorly documented relative to what should be known about them for optimal conservation, access and use. Countries with good information in hand about their resources will be in better position to decide on current resources utilisation, reduced duplication of effort and vision the future direction.
The sources of plant genetic resources information can be from
1. Information available in published articles & directories
2. Information from Genebank documentation systems
3. Information from exploration & collecting missions
4. Information held by traditional farmers & indigenous people
Information is a result of technical, scientific and socio-economic research as well as specialised, traditional and indigenous knowledge that have been accumulated. As an input it shapes the future of research and work on PGR conservation. The availability of information depends a lot on the availability of data captured and ease in which it can be accessed. Breeders and users of germplasm need PGR information to develop their work on plant breeding. Counties with good information about their PGR resources can prevent others from taking patents and IPR on their resources. It is important that sufficient documentation capacity exists to record such information and make it available for users in a country.
Some information sources to consider are published and those that are not. Published information as hardcopy in books, journals and a variety of prints is grouped into formal publications like journals and informal publications as in departmental reports. The informal publications considered as grey literatures are important sources of information. It can be said that all organisations that work in PGR conservation in a country will have such information and linking them will enable better access to it by PGR workers. The directories if any published will indicate efforts made to consolidate these information together. The electronic medium is making information more readily available enabling countries to know what they have. The Internet provides an abundant of information with easy access that efforts are needed to sieve out what is needed as attempted by this infobase.
Genebanks are a source of information and documentation system has to be in place to ensure information becomes available for the available genetic resources and the management of the genebank. The information in genebanks can tell us what more need to be conserved and the management needs of the germplasm conserved. They provide essential information required by breeders and users of the germplasm. The availability of data for exchange is a measure the success of the genebank’s documentation system. Documentation without sharing & exchange of information is as good as no information. Exchange of information does not mean standardizing documentation software. The Data Interchange Protocol (DIP) had assisted some National Programmes to make available electronic directories of germplasm.
Information on collecting and exploration are needed for planning of future work in this area by avoiding duplication of effort and in providing an early warning to the threat of genetic erosion..
Linking together information on genetic resources in a country with traditional and indigenous knowledge of their use and conservation can contribute to ways of looking at on-farm conservation and the linkages between in situ and ex situ conservation. Proper documentation of farmers' knowledge must accord recognition to the information providers & the ability to track usage of this information by others. The use of the Indigenous Knowledge (IK) Journal concept by Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences have enabled indigenous knowledge articles by farmers to be printed within the Yunnan Agricultural Science & Technology Journal to allow citations to be made.
Full documenting of a given germplasm accession helps to establish how that accession was developed and maintained. By revealing this information, it is difficult for others to try to take out inappropriate patents or other IPR. During the Pacific IPR Working Group meeting, for example, increased work to document the existing Pacific collections was recommended as the most effective way to prevent others from taking out IPR on this germplasm.
The availability of information from all these sources determines the state of plant genetic resources in a country and reflects the state of information documentation. Inappropriately low priority in the allocation of funding for documentation can exacerbate the lack of available information at the national and institutional level.
More information:
Biodiversity Related Initiatives
System-wide Information Network for Genetic Resources (SINGER)
The International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications
Sustainable Earth Electronic Library - A unique collection of materials exclusively on the preservation
and restoration of our natural environment - the majority of this collection includes full-text materials
published by nonprofit environmental organizations and educational institutions and organizations
WWW Virtual Library on Sustainable Development
Quek, P. and Zhang Zongwen. 1995. Possible development in plant genetic resources documentation. Pp. 57-62 in Proceedings of East Asia Coordinators Meeting on Plant Genetic Resources, 23-25 September 1994, CAAS, Beijing, China. (Ramanatha Rao, V., Kenneth W. Riley, Zhang Zongwen and Zhou Ming-De, eds.) IPGRI, Office for East Asia, Beijing, China.
Painting, K.A., Perry, M.C., Denning, R.A. and Ayad, W.G. 1993. Guide book for Genetic Resources Documentation. IBPGR, Rome, Italy.
Sandoval, V.N. 1991. Memory banking protocol: A guide for documenting indigenous knowledge associated with traditional crop varieties. Memory banking protocol: A guide for documenting indigenous knowledge associated with traditional crop varieties. Training Document Series 1991-1. UPWARD-CIP.
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