On 31 October, a consignment of more than 1.1 tonnes of chickpea seed was received by the WorldVeg genebank at its headquarters in Shanhua Taiwan. This shipment was the second received from ICRISAT, containing 10,000 accessions of eight Cicer species (C. arietinum, C. bijugum, C. chorassanicum, C. cuneatum, C. echinospermum, C. judaicum, C. pinnatifidum, and C. yamashitae). This was immediately put into long term storage at -20°C, alongside the 10,5000 accessions received on 23 November 2022, making a total of 2.15 tonnes in 298 boxes.

Maarten van Zonneveld, Head of Genetic Resources stressed the importance of this. “We support other international genebanks in conserving their genetic resources, and that they want to send their seed here for back up is a testimony to the trust they have for Taiwan and for WorldVeg.”

“This is the second ‘blackbox’ deposit of ICRISAT’s hugely important chickpea collection with us, strengthening our collaboration with the OneCGIAR [of which ICRISAT is a member]”, Maarten continues. “These are already backed up in the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, and now there is a second back up stored with us. According to the FAO international genebank standards, each collection needs to be stored under long-term conditions at  -20°C in three different locations, ideally in different countries. A ‘blackbox’ deposit mean that we do not open the opens or distribute any of the seed: they are with us as contingency storage. This also confirms the international status of our genebank here in Taiwan, and we are so very happy to receive seed from ICRISAT who also host our regional center offices in India and Mali. Now, in return, we are hosting more of their germplasm collections!”

Why it is important to do this? It is essential that important germplasm collections are duplicated, as we never know what can happen. There could be technical issues like the refrigeration breaking down for example, conflicts or natural disasters like flooding and typhoons. Maarten explains what WorldVeg is doing. “Most of our collections are already backed up in Svalbard – we were also the largest single depositor in 2022 – and we aim to have our entire collection duplicated there by 2025. We also are continually adding to a second back up in South Korea’s national Rural Development Administration genebank. And in doing so, the International Vegetable Genebank at WorldVeg is transitioning to meeting international genebank standards.”

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is a very valuable and nutritious legume, and was also one of the first crops to have been domesticated, possibly in southeastern Turkey where the wild progenitor Cicer reticulatum can still be found growing today. Archeobotanical records show that chickpea was already being grown in Syria more than 10,000 years ago, and it spread widely and relatively rapidly, first around the Mediterranean basin and in the Middle East, with carbon dated chickpea found in southern France from 8,000 years BP. And it has been cultivated in India for at least 5,000 years. FAO estimates annual production to be in the region of 15 million tonnes per year, of which some three quarters of that in India, with Turkey, Pakistan and Myanmar being other leading producers. Trade Data Monitor LLC cited by USDA indicated that the total global trade in chickpea in 2022 was nearly US$ 1.5 billion, with the leading exporting countries being Australia, India, Canada and Turkey. Chickpea also goes by the name of garbanzo bean, channa and Bengal gram, amongst others.

For more information about the WorldVeg genebank, see:

WorldVeg Genebank – World Vegetable Center (avrdc.org)