The Crop Trust published its 2024 report, Celebrating 20 Years of Crop Trust, showcasing key achievements from the past year as the only global organization focused exclusively on safeguarding crop diversity in genebanks.
In 2024, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault celebrated 16 years as the world’s premier backup for crop diversity. The year also saw significant growth in its contributor community, with 20 new depositors sending seeds to the Arctic facility for the first time. The report notes that “many of the new depositors were able to back up their seeds due to support by the BOLD project, funded by the Government of Norway. With this activity in 2024, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault now houses over 1.3 million seed samples of over 6,000 species from 123 depositors.”
Genebank Data
In 2024, genebanks made significant progress in data sharing and management. Over 4.3 million accessions were published in Genesys, which also saw 832 new user registrations, bringing the total to 4,173. The largest-ever GOAL Data Management workshop was held in Bogotá, Colombia, offering training on new Genesys features to 36 participants from 14 organizations across 12 countries. Spanish and French versions of Genesys were launched, increasing global accessibility. AI-powered natural language search was also introduced in multiple languages. The GGCE software was further enhanced and adopted by 32 partner genebanks, with successful implementations at CIMMYT, AfricaRice, and ICTA in Guatemala.
Other Highlights
In 2024, the Sweetpotato project more than doubled its target by transferring 64 landraces from Madagascar and Zambia to CIP in Lima for long-term conservation. Farmers in both countries received nearly 70,000 clean vines, leading to improved yields despite drought conditions. Training and disease-free planting materials further boosted on-farm results.
The report also highlights their tie to the 2024 World Food Prize, genbank quality and risk management, conservation strategies, The Biodiversity for Opportunities, Livelihoods and Development (BOLD) project, and much more.
To read the entire report, click here
Fast Facts – The Year in Numbers:
- Crop diversity conserved: USD 18.2m was provided to projects and other activities that strengthen the conservation and use of the diversity of everything from banana to rice.
- Crop diversity used: 80,000+ seed samples were distributed by the international genebanks, including the CGIAR, in 2024.
- Crop diversity safely backed up: 64,000+ seed samples were added to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. As of December 2024, the Seed Vault safeguards over 1.3m seed samples from 123 institutions worldwide.
- Crop diversity documented: 86% of the 4.3m active accessions in the information platform Genesys were updated in 2024. As of December, 90% of the accessions in Genesys were up-to-date, allowing stakeholders around the globe to search for and request samples.
- Crop diversity highlighted: 2.7m people reached across social media channels, 987 media mentions and 136 stories, press releases, podcast episodes, videos and recipes amplified to promote crop diversity and the Crop Trust’s efforts to advance the global genebank partnership.
- Crop diversity financially secured: USD 357m was the market value of the Endowment Fund at the end of 2024. New contributions totaled USD 37.7m – the highest donation amount in one year in the history of the Crop Trust.
