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Abstract
The world-wide capacity of genebanks for ex situ conservation of crop genetic
resources has increased greatly since the 1970s, improving the access of crop
breeders to landraces and wild and weedy relatives. But utilization of genebank
resources has not kept pace. The set of popular cultivars in major crops is
typically rather small, and their ancestry encompasses only a fraction of the
genetic diversity currently available in other cultivars. Discussions of farmers'
rights that focus on compensation for current incorporation of farmers' varieties
in new cultivars have diverted attention from the question of why so little of the
newly accessible genetic diversity is currently being utilized by public and private
breeders. To optimize the future provision of genebank services, research is
needed on the costs of genebanks, the market for their services, the use of genetic
resources by breeders, and the implications of recognition of farmers' rights,
evolving intellectual property rights, continued funding problems and developments in biotechnology.