A Global system at work:
Genebanks link across continents to protect seed collections

– 21 January 2026 –

Mary Tung, Principal Research Assistant at the WorldVeg Genetic Resources and Seed Unit, places CATIE seed boxes in long-term storage in the WorldVeg international genebank. Pic by Neil Palmer (WorldVeg).

A new shipment of 1,100 seed samples has arrived at the World Vegetable Center (WorldVeg) genebank in Taiwan after an approximately 12,000 km journey from Costa Rica.

The shipment, sent by the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE, by its Spanish acronym), contains back-up copies of seeds held in the organization’s genebank, with samples of chili peppers, tomatoes, and several squash species, reflecting a wide range of crop diversity from the Americas.

Among the squash are different species of Cucurbita, including Cucurbita pepo – a group that includes zucchini, gourds, and some pumpkins – as well as Cucurbita moschata and Cucurbita maxima, which include many pumpkins and winter squash landraces from their primary center of diversity in the Americas, and which are valued for their storage quality, nutritional content, and resilience in tropical and subtropical climates.

The tomato material includes Solanum pimpinellifolium, the wild ancestor of today’s cultivated tomato and a key source of traits such as disease resistance, stress tolerance, and flavor. The shipment also contains Capsicum pubescens, a chili species with hairy leaves, purple flowers, and black seeds, adapted to cool highland environments and valued for conserving genetic diversity within peppers. This chili also has a distinctive heat profile, characterized by rapid heat development and lingering pungency.

The CATIE material is now being conserved by WorldVeg strictly as “safety duplicates” – backup copies in case the original collection is damaged or lost. CATIE retains sole responsibility for access, distribution and use of the seeds.

A global safety net for crop diversity

The work is undertaken within the framework of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), a United Nations treaty administered by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and in line with the FAO Genebank Standards, which provide technical guidance for genebank management.

The FAO standards recommend that genebanks store duplicates of their seed collections in at least one – and preferably two – additional secure locations, ideally on different continents, to reduce the risk unique crop diversity becoming lost. These arrangements are typically managed as “black box” safety duplicates, whereby the receiving genebank stores the material under sealed conditions and does not open, regenerate, distribute or use the seeds for research or breeding. The seeds are stored at minus 18 degrees Celsius, the international standard for long-term conservation.

The latest CATIE shipment marks the organization’s third black-box deposit at the WorldVeg genebank in Taiwan, home to the world’s largest public vegetable seed collection.

“It’s great news that the latest CATIE shipment is now safely in long-term storage at WorldVeg headquarters,” said Daniel Fernández Rivera, a specialist at CATIE’s Breeding Unit. “Our long-standing partnership with WorldVeg gives us confidence that this diversity will be safe for generations to come. It shows what’s possible when genebanks work together to protect crops that underpin food systems worldwide. We are grateful to the entire Worldveg team, who collaborated to successfully complete this duplicate.”

“Being entrusted with the safety back-up of another genebank’s material reflects a high level of confidence in WorldVeg facilities, its expertise, and its capacity for reliable, long-term stewardship of genetic resources,” said Maarten van Zonneveld, head of the Genetic Resources Program at WorldVeg, and manager of its genebank, which maintains the largest public collection of vegetable seeds in the world. “It’s also an example of the international system for conserving plant genetic resources working as it should – through collaboration, shared responsibility, and mutual trust across continents to safeguard crop diversity now and for the future.”

The WorldVeg genebank also conserves safety duplicates of the global chickpea collection conserved by the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), a CGIAR center with its headquarters in Hyderabad, India.

The RDA seed shipment, organised by members of the WorldVeg genebank team, with Yoonah Jang – an RDA scientist seconded to WorldVeg – also pictured. Pics by Neil Palmer (WorldVeg).

International seed flows

The arrival of the CATIE seed samples follows last month’s shipment of seeds from the WorldVeg genebank in Taiwan to the genebank of the Rural Development Administration (RDA) in South Korea, one of two international locations that provide backups of the WorldVeg seed collections. WorldVeg sends duplicate seed samples to the RDA each year as part of its own long-term conservation strategy.

This recent RDA shipment included eggplant, chili, soybean, black gram, coriander, leafy brassicas, pumpkin, radish, lablab, and samples from the plant genus Ocimum, which includes different kinds of basil – such as sweet basil, Thai basil, and holy basil – widely valued for their culinary, aromatic, and medicinal uses across many cultures. It means approximately 85 percent of the WorldVeg genebank collection is now securely backed up at the RDA.

The second international location is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway – the ultimate black-box safe haven for plant genetic diversity. Currently more than 90% of the WorldVeg collection is safely stored in Svalbard. 

Furthermore, WorldVeg safeguards its seed collections through reciprocal backup arrangements between its genebanks in Taiwan and Tanzania. As part of this system, it backs up its collections of traditional African Vegetables at Africa’s Vegetable Genebank, the Center’s  facility in Arusha, Tanzania, which houses the continent’s largest repository of seeds of traditional African vegetables. These materials are conserved as active collections, and are used by researchers to develop improved crop varieties.Africa’s Vegetable Genebank has distributed hundreds of thousands of seed samples directly to farmers and schools in Africa. In return, Africa’s Vegetable Genebank backs up its collections at the WorldVeg genebank in Taiwan.