2.1 The webinars

Webinar 1: "Why gene banking?"

1. Outreach activities - informing and educating the public (and students to engage the next generation of experts?) of the importance of genetic resource banking,
2. Current technological limitations (bottlenecks) in the cryopreservation of animal germplasm – future research priorities, and
3. Practical solutions to strengthen conservation.

Figure 1: The country wise distribution of the participants for webinar 1. Date: 23.6.2021. Number of registered participants: 39.

Table 1: Participating organisations and universities in webinar 1. Date 23.6.2021. Number of registered participants: 39. Number of participating organisations and universities: 23.

Webinar 2: “Arvokas geeniperimä pakkaseen – Eläin- ja kasvigeenivarojen pankittamisen nykytilanne ja haasteet”

(Cryoconservation of the valuable genetic resources – The current situation and challenges of gene banking animal and plant genetic resources)

1. Onko Suomen kansallinen geenivaraohjelma sinulle tuttu, tunnetko sen sisällön? (Eng: Are you familiar with the Finnish National Genetic Resources Programme for Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery, do you know its content?)
2. Minullako arvokkaita geenivaroja? (Eng: Do I have valuable genetic resources?)
3. Miten mielestäni yhteydenpito tuottajien ja geenivarakoordinaattorin välillä pitäisi toteuttaa? (Eng: How do I think communication between producers and the national coordinator should be implemented?).
4. Kuka omistaa / kenen pitäisi omistaa geenivarat? (Eng: Who owns / who should own the genetic resources?).
5. Geenipankki ja eläintautien torjunta, miten lisäisit geenivarojen tunnettuutta – alkutuottajien tekemän geenivarasäilytyksen statuksen parantaminen? (Eng: The gene bank and the fight against animal diseases: How would you increase the awareness of genetic resources – improving the status of genetic resource preservation by primary producers?)
6. Geenivarojen säilytyksen taloudelliset näkökulmat, Miten näet geenivarojen tulevaisuuden? Terveiset geenipankille! (Eng: Economic aspects of conserving genetic resources: How do you see the future of genetic resources? Greetings to gene bank!)

Figure 2: Background of participants in webinar 2. Date 8.12.2021. Number of registered participants: 59.

Table 2: List of organisations and universities that the participants were representing. Date 8.12.2021.

1. The knowledge about the content of The Finnish National Genetic Resources Programme for Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery is superficial and depends on the farmers’ own activity.
2. More science-based knowledge is needed for the different genetic lines within the native cattle breeds. Farmers consider that all production systems should be valued, e.g. both dairy and suckler cow production. Also, according to the participants, the concept of unique genetic resources should not be limited only to registered individuals. “It is time to focus on quality instead of quantity.” 
3. Up-to-date communication between the different stakeholders is considered very important. Farmers also hope for the establishment of a steering group for the management of the native cattle genetic resources. Farmers lack accurate science-based information about the conservation programme. It is not considered to be enough to have just pedigree and traditional knowledge-based information. Regular up-to-date reporting is also considered important. Farmers hope for an updated database to aid their decision making in breeding. At the same time farmers expressed concerns about bureaucratic involvement in a conservation programme.
4. Sample collection into a gene bank is based on mutual agreement between the animal owner and the gene bank.

1. The conservation programme of the Finnhorse is not well known. Horse owners hope for more publicly available information.
2. Public knowledge about the composition of the gene bank working group is missing, who are the members?
3. Public knowledge should also be available about the selection criteria of the Finnhorse stallions collected for the gene bank.
4. Using ARTs (cryopreservation of semen/ sperm and oocytes, ICSI) in horses is considered expensive.
5. Collaboration with the commercial equine sector is considered to benefit the conservation programme in the long run.
6. Somatic cell cloning may be used as tool to preserve native horse breeds.

1. Beekeeping of the Nordic native brown bee is not secure in Finland, because the population size of this subspecies is small, and only a small number of bee farmers are interested in keeping these bees.
2. Only semen cryopreservation is successful now. Successful cryopreservation of eggs would enable desired breeding goals.
3. Exchange of information is easy due to the small group of bee farmers but requires personal relationships and own activity. It requires constant activity to have enough publicity to succeed in the conservation of the Nordic brown bee.
4. Bee farmers own their own genetic resources.
5. Most viruses may be spread through inseminations and affect the breeding success of queens. It would be beneficial to have a diagnostic tool to assess sperm quality/ sanitary status.
6. In the future, there will be costs for testing the purity of the Nordic brown bees from DNA to ensure conservation of the brown bee genetic resources.
7. Cryoconservation is not yet optimised in bees. It is therefore necessary to follow international research.

1. Different animal groups need to communicate/ be informed about their contemporary conservation status (future aims should be better known)
2. The public should be informed about the conservation programmes of our versatile animal genetic resources, including the content of the programmes and the parties involved.
3. The situation for many breeds/ subspecies is critical as circumstances change rapidly and genetic diversity is lost in every generation.
4. It would be beneficial for the conservation of the genetic resources of chicken if cryopreserved semen samples could be used successfully.
5. It was discussed what is reasonable compensation for the contribution in conservation of genetic diversity.
6. It is important to inform the public and/ or decision-makers that disease status changes rapidly, and that ex-situ gene banking is one solution that helps us to be prepared for the circumstances where a disease outbreak has caused extinction of an entire breed, or genetic diversity must be re-introduced into a population suffering from inbreeding depression.
7. The maedi-visna programme for sheep farms is needed. At the moment it is voluntary, and sheep farmers resign from it.

1. It is crucial to improve communication so that information is more easily available for the stakeholders.
2. It would be beneficial to supervise the public on how to recognize and classify valuable genetic resources.
3. It is also beneficial for the stakeholders to know what already exists in gene banks. NordGen maintains seeds for all the Nordic countries and its collections include around two thousand accessions of the Finnish origin. Around 1000 accessions of clonally propagated species varieties are conserved in the Finnish clonal gene banks in the field collections. The data that has been stored in of the national clonal collections will also be uploaded to the NordGen’s database, where it will be publicly available, but it may be laborious to find. Most data are uploaded already.
4. GENBIS could serve as an important platform for this communication. It is worth informing the public where it can be found and how the plant data can be ordered.
5. There is a wish for more transparency and collaboration for the plant gene banks. The participants feel this will improve knowledge-sharing and important stakeholders to openly discuss which actions that are desired and needed from the genetic resources in the gene banks.
6. Luke maintains the gene bank of the clonally propagated plant species, and its accessions are safeguarded by cryopreservation (cryotanks in two locations) and by the safety maintainers network (outside Luke).
7. Genetic resources of cultivated plants should be available for plant breeding to ensure future food security. Through the gene banks they are available by SMTA (standard material transfer agreement) according to the International Treaty.
8. Cryoconservation offers a good approach to avoid plant diseases. Cryopreserved disease-free materials can be used to revitalize and renew gene bank field collections or commercial nurseries used for reproduction and marketing.
9. There could be interested customers for “cryoservice” since the establishment of cryoconservation is expensive. It is worth exploring whether Luke could sell such a service.
10. Because cryoconservation is rather expensive, it is crucial to communicate the value and importance of genetic resources to the public.
11. It is difficult to give financial value to the genetic resources. A gene bank that acts as a backup storage, can be shown to outsiders only as an expense, but it is indeed priceless material.
12. In Finland, subsidies are available for the cultivation of the registered conservation varieties, as well as for the network that maintains the backup collections of clonally propagated plant genetic resources.
13. It is of high importance to secure genetic resources and especially species that are under severe threat of diseases to safely maintain them for future use.