Ex-situ conservation involves seed collections from farmers then processing the seed, through cleaning, germination and moisture testing then drying the seeds to 7% moisture percentage to ensure the standard Gene banking quality for long term storage in freezers at minus 21 degrees Celsius for up to 10 years not exposed to the changing environmental conditions. This conservation strategy also enables farmers, breeders and other researchers to freely access this seed, which is the basic component of food security. Our ex-situ seed collection currently stands at over 3000 traditional variety accessions freely available to farmers, breeders and other researchers upon request.
Insitu/Onfarm Conservation
Insitu/Onfarm conservation implies simply the conservation of crop plant species in their natural habitats as live plants either on farms or in special protected reserves. This strategy also allows the conservation of crops that cannot be propagated by seeds such as sweet potato, cassava, taro and various fruit trees. Insitu/On-farm Conservation of crop plants involves the active participation of farmers thereby capacitating them with seed security at the household level through strengthening their farming strategies and use of traditional knowledge and hence enhancing food security and eradicating extreme poverty and hunger. The GRBI plans to conserve three root and tuber crops namely Livingstone potato sweet potato and taro by establishing field genebanks in a number of communities and research centres across the country. In addition also plans are underway to distribute the conserved seed to a number of communities and promote their utilization and conservation in communities through on farm conservation and farmers will be capacitated the participatory pre-breeding techniques.