International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
Abstract
Plant genetic resources can be defi ned as the “Genetic material of plants that is of
value as a resource for the present and future generations of people” (IPGRI 1993).
The importance of genetic resources was recognized at the inter-governmental
platform under the umbrella of Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the
United Nations as “common heritage of mankind” that should be made available
without restriction (FAO 1983). The genetic resources have evolved as a product of
domestication, intensifi cation, diversifi cation and improvement through conscious
and unconscious selection by countless generations of farmers, man-guided
diversity in the form of landraces and improved cultivars that provide basic and
strategic raw materials for crop improvement the world over in present and future
generations
