With new genomic data and increasing digitisation, plant gene banks are facing a “crossroads”, whereby they could improve or worsen both digital and crop breeding divides, depending on the choices made by international organisations and companies.
That’s the view of Dr Sylvain Aubry, a scientific advisor to the Swiss government. In an editorial for Agriculture and Human Values, he argued that with food security and loss of biodiversity high up global political agendas, careful consideration needs to be given to the storage and availability of genetic assets.
Collection of landraces, bred and wild crop plants has fulfilled the needs of international treaties on genetic resources for farming, Aubry said, but modern genomic techniques allow the understanding of how certain genes bring about the interaction of plants and their environment, which pave the way for advanced breeding approaches.
Whole genomes are now available for most crops, meaning we are now entering the era of ‘postgenomics’, he argued, where genetic differences within species are being identified at a rapid rate. Such differences may explain certain varieties’ performance under environmental stresses or resistance to pests, for example.
With these advancements come fundamental changes in how the data can be stored and used, which throw up legal and ethical challenges.
‘Biopiracy’ or mutual benefits?
The ongoing digitisation of the UN’s International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGRFA) collections is likely to result in a move from handling seeds to distributing digital information. But underlying issues remain, he said, including a global North/South divide, illustrated by a bias in genome sequencing work towards cash crops of importance in industrialised economies.
Developments such as gene-editing technologies have thrown legal uncertainty around data access and governance, while some have argued that with digitisation, physical gene banks may effectively become obsolete.
“Gene banks are at a crossroads: either driving the path to what could be referred to as digital biopiracy and ultimately enhancing both the breeding and digital divide, or using this probably unique opportunity to adapt practices, promote capacity building and ultimately improve access to their resources,” Aubry explained.
“This may, in turn, empower local and smallholder farmers to participate actively in storing, sharing and breeding local agrobiodiversity.”
Localisation could bring more practical data use
Currently, less than 1% of PGRFA resources are estimated to be used for breeding programmes. The development of local networks bringing plant genetic resources closer to farmers that could use them may be one route to change, he continued.
To do this, however, requires strong political leadership, in keeping with the original principles of gene banking: caretaking globally-important assets to ensure genetic diversity for future generations.
