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About the Centre for Pacific Crops & Trees (CePaCT)

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Centre for Pacific Crops & Trees

The genetic diversity represented by the many local varieties found within crop plants, often called plant genetic resources (PGR), is the raw material of sustainable agriculture. It allows farmers to respond to changes in the physical and biotic environment, and in market preferences, and provides the raw materials for plant improvement. Yet, these resources are threatened in the Pacific, as around the world, by factors such as climate change, the spread of modern lifestyles and urban migration, moves towards modern varieties and exotic cash crops, and pest and disease outbreaks. Pacific Ministers of Agriculture thus resolved in 1996 “to put in place, both in their countries and through regional cooperation, policies to conserve, protect and best utilize their plant genetic resources,” and asked the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) to help.

The SPC LRD has responded to this resolution through the establishment of Regional Germplasm Centre (RGC) in 1998. The RGC assists Pacific Island countries in conserving the region’s genetic resources, and providing access to those genetic resources. We are using tissue culture techniques for conservation, and currently giving priority to taro, yam, sweet potato and banana, but other crops are also receiving attention, such as cassava, kava, breadfruit and traditional leafy vegetables. The RGC has a unique collection of taro from the Pacific and also has some cultivars from Southeast Asia – the collection numbers 675 accessions in all. The RGC works closely with taro breeding programmes in Papua New Guinea and Samoa ensuring improved lines are made available to others PICTs. Current research areas are cryopreservation of taro and sweet potato, breadfruit micropropagation, kava micropropagation, taro somatic embryogenesis and seed storage. The RGC works closely with the countries in the Pacific in the evaluation of germplasm and also with other regional agencies in various areas of research.

Another response has been to put in place the Pacific Agricultural Plant Genetic Resources Network, or PAPGREN. The rationale for a network of this sought in the Pacific is especially strong because the region is made up of small, isolated countries which nevertheless share many crops, agricultural systems, and indeed problems. The concept of a PGR network was endorsed by Pacific Directors of Agriculture in 2001. A Pacific Agricultural PGR Action Plan was developed by PAPGREN partners at a regional workshop in September 2001. This is being implemented by national organizations in partnership with the Land Resources Division of SPC and IPGRI through projects funded by NZAID and ACIAR.

PICTs participating in PAPGREN: Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu.

The following activities have been carried out:

National PGR stakeholder consultations carried out in several PICTS.

Published a policy options paper for decision-makers and researchers.

Existing germplasm collections are being documented for publication in a regional inventory.

A regional conservation strategy developed for breadfruit.

Priority conservation activities supported including collecting and establishment of field genebanks in FSM and Vanuatu, cultivar documentation in FSM and Kiribati, taro seed storage research and sweet potato evaluation in PNG.

Regular meetings of national PAPGREN focal points.

The PAPGREN network project works in close collaboration with other SPC units and projects, in particular the Regional Germplasm Centre and the EU-funded Developing Sustainable Agriculture in the Pacific (DSAP) project.

For more information, please contact Mary Taylor, Regional Germplasm Centre Adviser.