WASHINGTON, Feb. 8, 2012 –The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS), partnering with Bioversity International and the Global Crop Diversity Trust, has launched the Germplasm Resources Information Network-Global (GRIN-Global), a powerful but easy-to-use, Internet-based information management system for the world’s plant genebanks. It also expands and streamlines access to USDA’s Germplasm Resources Information Network, a database of more than 540,000 different samples of plants available from the National Plant Germplasm System.”
Genebanks support agricultural productivity and global food security goals by ensuring access to plant genetic resources in the face of daunting challenges such as crop diseases and pests, an expanding human population, environmental deterioration, and changing climates. Gene banks also safeguard genetic resources and biodiversity that help provide farmers with access to new, more productive varieties of crops and animals.
The Global Crop Diversity Trust provided $1.4 million in support of this three-year project.
