‘Seed homecomings’ –WorldVeg repatriating vegetable germplasm to their Southeast Asia countries of origin

Many thousands of vegetable seed samples were collected 20-30 years ago across Southeast Asia by national genebanks and the World Vegetable Center. And today, some of these no longer exist in their countries of origin. Enter, the Taiwan Asia Vegetable Initiative (TAsVI), that has been identifying, testing and package more than 3,700 accessions that will now be sent back to Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. The project has also established a platform including national genebanks in the region, the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute, and WorldVeg, to regenerate this seed and make it available to researchers, seed companies and farmers.

The return of this vegetable heritage will be celebrated in each country at ‘seed homecoming ceremonies.’ The first of these will be held in Thailand on 19 September 2024 at the Tropical Vegetable Research Center, at Kasetsart University’s Kamphaeng Saen campus. The second will be in the following week, in the Philippines. These will be followed by ceremonies in Vietnam and Malaysia in October, before a final event and two-day stakeholder symposium in December.

TAsVI is funded by the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is implemented by the World Vegetable Center, in partnership with the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute (TARI) National Plant Genetic Resources Center; Malaysia Agriculture Research and Development Institute (MARDI) Horticulture Research Centre; University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) Institute of Plant Breeding, and Bureau of Plant Industries (BPI), the Philippines; Kasetsart Univerity Tropical Vegetable Research Center (TVRC), and Department of Agriculture Horticulture Research Institute national genebank, Thailand; and Fruit and Vegetable Research Institute (FAVRI), and Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VAAS) Plant Resource Center (PRC), Vietnam