Gene banks and case study of Egypt [electronic resource].

Includes references.

In recent years there has been c dramatic and very welcome increase in awareness, worldwide, of the critical contribution that genetic resources for food and agriculture can make to food security, poverty alleviation and environmental sustainability. The ultimate goal of efforts in building up capacities in conservation and use of plant genetic resources at national and global levels, especially establishing gene banks, is to maximize the utilization of these collections through selection and breeding programmers and hence contribute to increasing farmers income and agricultural production to meet the demand for food and nutrition security while protecting the natural resource base of the agricultural production system. Routine gene bank operations usually involve the collecting, handling and management (including research) of germplasm, its storage, regeneration, characterization/evaluation, documentation and dissemination to users. It is now widely accepted that conservation can be done on-site (in situ) and off-site (ex situ). In situ conservation i.e. protected areas, conservation on-farm and home gardens covering both wild and domesticated species. Ex situ conservation, is concentrated mainly on cultivated species, including of seed storage, pollen storage, field gene banks, in vitro conservation, botanical gardens and DNA storage. Egypt is one of the earliest civilizations known to have adopted some form of nature conservation. And it has been active in the in situ conservation of wildlife, natural resources and natural habitats. Ex situ conservation in many botanic gardens, entomological collections and herbaria are carrying out Last year (2004), the National Gene Bank was opened officially and the Genetic Resources Policy Initiative (GRPI) project in Egypt was officially launched.

Summary in Arabic.

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