SGRP Website

The Centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) together contain more than 650,000 accessions of crop, forage and agroforestry species. These include traditional varieties developed through many generations of selection by farmers, as well as wild species, crop breeding lines and improved varieties. The conserved crops range from such major staples as wheat, rice, maize and potato to lesser-known species such as cowpea and pearl millet.

In 1994, the international community recognized the need to protect the large and important crop diversity collections held by the CGIAR. In response, the CGIAR Centres placed their collections in trust for the world community under the intergovernmental authority of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). That arrangement has been succeeded by the Centres’ signing agreements with the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Find out more about the Treaty and the Material Transfer Agreements governing the distribution of material from the CGIAR Centre genebanks.

The Centres have the responsibility to ensure that the in-trust collections be maintained to the highest international standards and available to all according to the terms of the Treaty’s provisions on access and benefit-sharing. The Centres also have a commitment to provide up-to-date information on the collections. The System-wide Information Network for Genetic Resources (SINGER) was created to meet this commitment. Find out more about SINGER or visit SINGER’s website.

SGRP assists the Centres to meet their obligations as trustees of the global public goods represented by the genetic resources collections held in the Centre genebanks. These obligations include management of the collections to international standards designed to maintain health, viability, longevity and security, to analyse and document the qualities of the conserved material, to regenerate the genetic resources and distribute them and associated information to users.

In 2003, SGRP launched an initiative – sponsored by the World Bank – to upgrade the Centre genebank facilities and management practices. This ‘Global Public Goods’ project is a comprehensive programme of work to upgrade the CGIAR genebanks and the standards of management for the collections. This will ensure that the CGIAR Centres can meet their in-trust commitments, manage the collections efficiently and sustainably into the future, and facilitate access by users. Find out more about the Global Public Goods Project.

The Centres have amassed a tremendous amount of data on the origins, characteristics and performance of each of the samples in the collections. The agreements signed between the Centres and the Treaty require Centres to make all information on the in-trust collections easily available just as the material itself is available. SINGER was established under the auspices of the SGRP to help Centres meet these responsibilities.

The collections and the information about them are held by the genebanks of eleven Centres that are located across the world. SINGER allows these dispersed and independently managed genetic resources databases to be searched simultaneously through a single entry point on the Internet. Through the SINGER website, researchers, plant breeders, farmers and other users can search information on the identity, origin and characteristics of the individual accessions in the collections and can search for samples with the traits that they need. Find out more about SINGER or visit SINGER’s website.

Centre	Crop	Genus	Number of In Trust Accessions

Bioversity	Banana/Plantain	Musa	987

CIAT	Cassava	Manihot	6,525
	Beans	Phaseolus	35,225
	Forages		23,137

CIMMYT	Maize	Zea	23,276
	Wheat	Triticum et al.	111,681
	Triticale	Triticosecale	17,871
	Barley	Hordeum	14,528
	Rye	Secale	747

CIP	Sweet Potato	Ipomoea	6,045
	Potato	Solanum	7,261
	Andean roots and tubers	Oxalis, Ullucus, Tropaeolum Canna	1,112

ICARDA	Wheat	Triticum et al.	37,830
	Barley	Hordeum	26,129
	Chickpea	Cicer	12,249
	Faba Bean/ Vetch	Vicia	15,626
	Lentil	Lens	10,061
	Grass Pea	Lathyrus	2,805
	Alfalfa	Medicago	8,304
	Clover	Trifolium	4,078
	Pea	Pisum	5,437
	Other forages		4,859

ICRAF	Sesbania	Sesbania	25

ICRISAT	Groundnut	Arachis	14,803
	Chickpea	Cicer	17,117
	Pigeon Pea	Cajanus	13,389
	Sorghum	Sorghum	36,771
	Pearl Millet	Pennisetum	21,563
	Finger Millet	Eleusine	5,949
	Minor Millets	Echinochloa, Setaria, Paspalum, Panicum	4,231

IITA	Cowpea et al.	Vigna	18,649
	Cassava	Manihot	2,078
	Soybean	Glycine	1,909
	Yams	Dioscorea	3,087
	African yam bean	Sphenostylis	66

ILRI	Forages		18,661

IRRI	Rice	Oryza	102,652

WARDA	Rice	Oryza	14,751

TOTAL			651,474

Note: Figures as of June 2006.

Find out about the global impact of the plant genetic resources collections held in trust by the CGIAR Centres.