On May 23rd, 2023, China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF) and Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences (BAAFS) jointly organized a symposium called the Third Symposium on Conservation and Benefit Sharing of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture at the International Exchange Center of Vegetable Research Institute, BAAFS. Prof. Zheng Wang made a speech about “Benefit Sharing of Vegetable Germplasm Resources and Digital Sequence Information (DSI) in China”.

Prof. Wang pointed out that Chinese scientists have made great contributions to the global study of plant genes. Up to 2021, statistics showed that the world has now completed the assembly of more than 800 terrestrial plant genomes, and Chinese scientists and scholars have contributed about 29.4% of them, with uploading these data to NCBI [1] in the United States, EMBL [2] in Europe and other data platforms to be accessible for scholars around the world.

In terms of data analysis, Chinese scholars have participated in about 80% of the genome assemblies and data analysis of vegetables, and these data are shared on international digital databases. Chinese scholars have published 40.6% of research papers on genomics analysis of vegetables in the world, 580 of which have been extensively participated by experts from all over the world in cooperation. 35.4% of the papers on vegetable functional genes have been published by Chinese scholars and experts, with 1,524 papers of them being wrote by global collaboration.

Then he briefly introduced the progress of Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences in germplasm resources. BAAFS has made great efforts to the collection, protection, development and application of germplasm resources. Since the 1980s, many germplasm resource protection banks have been established, including four of the national level.

At present, its vegetable germplasm resource bank covers an area of approximately 459 square meters, collecting and preserving 33,731 copies of various germplasm resources, including 4 major categories, 28 families, 83 genera, and about 170 species. In the past 40 years since 1982, they have established a total of 10 resource breeding and innovation bases for the breeding and updating of vegetable resources, distributed throughout the country from Hainan to Hebei Province. They also have identified over 20,000 breeding resources, collaborated to screen 5,321 excellent vegetable resources, and created over 60,000 intermediate materials for the reproduction and utilization of germplasm resources.

Facing the impact of global warming and freshwater shortage, they have focused on cultivating germplasm resources that are heat-drought resilient, and suitable for intensive planting in the process of cultivating new varieties.

At last, Prof. Wang discussed with audience the challenges faced by the current vegetable germplasm resources research institutes. The first is that the utilization rate of some data that has been obtained is generally not high. The second is the existence of biotechnology barriers among countries. The third is the lack of support from international multilateral sharing mechanisms and relevant legal policies. He then proposed corresponding solutions to the above issues.

Notes:

[1] National Center for Biotechnology Information

[2] European Molecular Biology Laboratory

Translator: Richard

Checked by Victoria

Editor: Richard

Contact: V10@cbcgdf.org; +8617319454776

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