Costing the Conservation of Genetic Resources: A Comparison of the CIMMYT and ICARDA Genebanks

Abstract

The number of genebanks and the amount of seed stored in them has increased substantially over the past few decades. While most attention is focused on the likely benefits from conservation, conserving germplasm involves costs whose nature and magnitude are largely unknown. Because more resources spent on conserving germplasm often mean less spending on other genebank operations such as crop improvement research, knowledge of the costs of germplasm conservation has important, possibly long-run, R&D management, policy and food-security consequences. Moreover, these costs place a lower bound on the benefits deemed likely to justify the expense of saving this seed. In this contribution we compile and use a set of cost data for wheat and maize stored in the CIMMYT17 genebank and cereals, food legumes and forage legumes in the ICARDA18 genebank to address a number of questions. What is the cost of storing an accession of either crop for one more year, or, equivalently, what is the benefit in terms of cost savings from eliminating duplicate accessions from the genebank? Relatedly, what is the cost from introducing a new accession into the genebank, given the decision to store it is revisited after one year? Does it make economic sense for a gene bank to discard accessions that may be available else-where? As an extension of this line of inquiry, it is possible to evaluate the benefits from either consolidating gene banks or at least networking existing banks to reduce or eliminate duplicate holdings not needed for backup safety purposes. We illustrate the cost-saving consequences of consolidating genebanks with data from CIMMYT.