PGR Secure helpdesk: LR resources
On this page you will find a number of resources to aid and inform the national LR conservation strategy planning process. For one-to-one guidance on any aspect of national LR conservation strategy planning, please contact the LR helpdesk manager, Valeria Negri: valeria.negri@unipg.it.
LR conservation planning aids
- A Training Guide for In Situ Conservation On-Farm (2000): Technical skills and tools to build institutional capacity and partnerships to implement an on-farm conservation programme
- Law and Policy of Relevance to the Management of Plant Genetic Resources (2005): Introduction to international legal and policy instruments relevant to professionals who manage, conserve and use plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and/or have policy-making responsibilities.
- The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture: Implementing the Multilateral System – Learning Module (2010): A module for professionals who work in plant genetic resources to understand the impact and working of the multilateral system of access and benefit-sharing of the International Treaty and to use its standard material transfer agreement (SMTA) to enhance transfer of plant genetic resources.
- Italian guidelines to conserve and characterize biodiversity which is useful for agriculture (Linee guida per la conservazione e la caratterizzazione della biodiversità vegetale, animale e microbica di interesse per l’agricoltura) (i.e. plant, animal and microbial genetic resources). This work was commissioned by the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forest Politics to a panel of experts. It contains a huge amount of information and was designed to support in practice in situ, on farm and ex situ conservation activities. [IN ITALIAN]
- Executive summary of the Guidelines for the Conservation and Characterization of Plant, Animal and Microbial Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture [IN ENGLISH]
- Summary of the Italian Guidelines for Conservation of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture that was submitted by the Italian Government to the International Treaty for the implementation of Article 6 [IN ENGLISH]
- PGRFA Conservation Toolkit: 'Resource Book for the Preparation of National Plans for Conservation of Crop Wild Relatives and Landraces' aims to help nations to systematically formulate national strategies for the conservation of CWR and LR by leading the user through the various steps of the process and providing supporting reference material.
LR data
Resources with a specific focus on in situ LR data:
- www.arsial.it/portalearsial/RegistroVolontarioRegionale/Default.htm
- http://germoplasma.arsia.toscana.it/Germo/
For a guide to searching for LR ex situ conservation data that can be used for searching LR in situ as well as for carrying out a gap analysis, please consult:
The EURISCO web catalogue receives data from the National Inventories and provides access to all ex situ PGR information in Europe.
LR information management tools
Landraces are part of agro-biodiversity in urgent need of conservation. A prerequisite of any active conservation is some form of inventory of what is extant. In this context, one of the aims of the PGR Secure project is to provide help in generating National Landrace Inventories in European countries to begin the process of creating a Europe-wide landrace inventory. A European LR Inventory can only be based on National Inventories because the responsibility to conserve and sustainably use landrace diversity (as well as any other biodiversity component) lies with individual nations; therefore, any concerted action will be implemented at national level, even when driven by policy at European level.
Descriptors for Web-Enabled National In Situ Landrace Inventories were developed to facilitate the development of National LR Inventories that are still maintained in situ (i.e. on farm or in garden). The Descriptors include all the information that were discussed by the in situ National Inventory Focal Points, the ECPGR Documentation and Information Network members and the PGR Secure team working on landraces at the workshop, Conservation Strategies for European crop wild relative and landrace diversity held in Palanga, Lithuania in September 2011. Thanks are due to Adriana Alercia (Bioversity International, Rome), Theo van Hintum (Centre for Genetic Resources ‒ Wageningen University and Research Centre, the Netherlands) and Lorenzo Maggioni (ECPGR Secretariat, Rome) for helpful suggestions and comments. Click here to view/ download the Descriptors for Web-Enabled National In Situ Landrace Inventories.
The development of an ontology (controlled vocabulary) for the management of LR data is also one of the objectives of the PGR Secure project in the context of the development of the Trait Information Portal (TIP).
In addition, to easily record the information on in situ LR and build up an inventory, the PGR Secure project team also prepared a Database for recording national in situ LR inventory data (PGR_Secure_LR_data_recording_tool.mdb) that can be downloaded along with the manual (LR_data_recording_tool_MANUAL.pdf). Click here to download the tool (MS Access database and user manual zipped, 4.1MB).
LR publications
A selection of publications of relevance for LR conservation planning are listed below. Please note that if you were a participant in the Palanga workshop, you were provided with a range of useful publications on a flash drive which was included in your registration pack.
- Landraces newsletter (Issue 1, Issue 2)
- European landraces: on-farm conservation, management and use (2009)
- Vegetable landrace inventory of England and Wales: report (2009)
- Vegetable landrace inventory of England and Wales: information bulletin (2009)
- Agrobiodiversity Conservation: Securing the Diversity of Crop Wild Relatives and Landraces (2012)
LR networks
- ECPGR On-farm Conservation and Management Working Group
- On farm conservation, neglected and underutilized species, and climate change
LR project websites
From the links below, you will find a number of project websites which are related to LR and LR use.
- An Integrated European In Situ Management Workplan: Implementing Genetic Reserves and On-Farm Concepts (AEGRO)
- http://portal.geographie.uni-freiburg.de/forschungsprojekte/indigenoveg/
- www.diverseeds.eu/
- www.ensam.inra.fr/gap/resgen88/
- www.solibam.eu/
Past LR conferences/workshops
From the links below, you will find a number of resources associated with these past conferences/workshops, such as Powerpoint presentations, posters, reports and other related publications.
- Towards the establishment of genetic reserves for crop wild relatives and landraces in Europe, Funchal, Madeira, 13–16 September 2010
- Conservation strategies for European crop wild relative and landrace diversity, Palanga, Lithuania, 9–11 September 2011
Other useful links