The European Cooperative Programme for Crop Genetic Resources Networks

ECP/GR involves 35 countries in a joint effort to ensure the long-term conservation and increased use of plant genetic resources in Europe. The Programme, which is entirely financed by the participating countries and is coordinated by IPGRI, operates through ten broadly focused networks dealing with groups of crops or general themes related to plant genetic resources.

The chief goal of ECP/GR is to facilitate the long-term in situ and ex situ conservation and use of plant genetic resources in Europe. By strengthening links between plant genetic resources stakeholders including national institutions, NGOs and private breeders, ECP/GR promotes the sharing of conservation responsibilities on the continent, including among non-ECP/GR members. A number of countries have not yet formally joined ECP/GR, but have nominated focal points to allow collaboration with the Programme. These include Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Latvia, Moldova, the Russian Federation and the Ukraine.

ECP/GR is overseen by a Steering Committee consisting of the coordinators of national programmes of all participating countries. The International Association of Plant Breeders (ASSINSEL), FAO, IPGRI, Euro-MAB Programme (Man and Biosphere) of UNESCO, Nordic Gene Bank (NGB) and the NGO community are represented by observers. The Programme interacts with other international and regional bodies concerned with plant genetic resources, such as the Genetic Resources Programme of the European Union, and the World Information and Early Warning System on Plant Genetic Resources of FAO. IPGRI currently provides the Secretariat to ECP/GR.

Selected Activities
Network activities are most often carried out by working groups made up of representatives from participating countries. Actions are facilitated by focused meetings and implemented by the working group members and other scientists with their own resources as inputs in kind to the Programme. Working group members ensure effective links between ECP/GR and the respective stakeholders at the national level.

Information is a particular area of interest for ECP/GR. One key activity is the development of crop-specific databases, managed by one of the participating institutes. The databases hold passport data and some characterization and primary evaluation data on the major crop collections in Europe. In many cases, they are available on Internet in downloadable or searchable form by the managing institutes or by documentation support centers. The databases provide users with a tool for taking informed decisions on key aspects of managing national collections, such as priority-setting, rationalization and safety-duplication.

A project for the establishment of a European Plant Genetic Resources Information Infra–Structure (EPGRIS) is being funded by the European Commission. The project, which was developed by the ECP/GR Documentation and Information Network, will contribute to the further development of national plant genetic resources information systems throughout Europe and to the establishment of a regional catalogue (EURISCO) of the European accessions’ passport data.

The European Meeting on Plant Genetic Resources held in Nitra, Slovakia, September 1995, recommended that ECP/GR be used as a platform to facilitate the implementation of the Global Plan of Action (GPA) for the European region. The Programme has identified three GPA activities for priority attention: emergency actions, cooperation with EU-funded projects and training. Other network activities include planning joint research or collecting missions, promoting the use of genetic resources (e.g. through the establishment and evaluation of European core collections) and regional coordination of in situ and ex situ conservation activities.

 

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