Managing and funding germplasm preservation in Papua New Guinea - for improved indigenous foods

Since the 1960s, several countries and international agencies have embarked on collection and preservation of the germplasm of food crops. Such has been the case in Papua New Guinea (PNG). However, as outlined in this study, in PNG there has been considerable economic waste in germplasm maintenance. Over half the original PNG collections of tare, yams, sweet potato, cassava, aikiba, sage and bananas have been lost. This study outlines how funding vagaries, combined with pest, environment and staff problems have led to these losses. The study concludes with a suite of options to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of maintaining PNG's ex situ field collections of germplasm. Avoiding losses of germplasm is potentially important for indigenous agriculture in PNG and South Pacific. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.