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Vegetable gene bank project launched to increase crop diversity
Courtesy of ICRT
The Tainan-headquartered World Vegetable Center has unveiled a programme aimed at sharing the vegetable germplasm it keeps with the countries of origin in an effort to increase crop diversity in Southeast Asia.
According to the centre, the project involves more than 22,000 vegetable types in 183 species collected from 14 Southeast Asian countries. They have been stored in Taiwan over the past 30 years.
The centre says it will take about three years to evaluate the needs of affected countries -- including Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam -- and arrange for deliveries amid efforts to improve overall crop system resilience. Countries that no longer have the vegetable strains kept in Taiwan will be given priority.
The World Vegetable Center was established in 1971 by the Asian Development Bank, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.
