Cryopreservation: A long-term strategy for hard-to-conserve PGRFA collections in a post-COVID world

International Expert Panel on “Cryopreservation: a long-term strategy for hard-to-conserve plant genetic material for food and agriculture in a post-COVID world” - Cryopreservation is the key to conserving a number of crops we rely on for our food and agriculture. While most of the world’s food plants, such as rice, maize and wheat, can be conserved as seeds in genebanks, the same cannot be said for some other important crops. Crops like bananas, coffee and potatoes are normally conserved in tissue culture or field genebanks instead, but the safest long-term solution is cryopreservation, a complex process that stores tissues in liquid nitrogen at a temperature of -196°C. This is why the International Treaty and the Crop Trust organized an International Expert Panel as part of a series of online events being held during the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and in the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables (IYFV).