Darwin Initiative "Upgrading and broadening the new South-Pacific International Coconut Genebank"

Ten international recommendations from the 2012 COGENT Steering Committee Meeting

	Opening session of the 16th Steering Committee Meeting at the Woods Manor Hotel, Kochi, Kerala India

Bioversity International organized the 16th Steering Committee Meeting of the International Coconut Genetic Resources Network (COGENT) from 8th to 10th July 2012, in Kochi, Kerala, India. The meeting was funded by both the CGIAR Research Programme on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry and the Global Crop Diversity Trust.

As a key outcome of the meeting, the Steering Committee and participants from 18 countries, including official COGENT representatives and various stakeholders of the global coconut sector have endorsed 10 major international recommendations in the field of coconut research and development.

The topics of these recommendations are the following:

1. An international initiative for sequencing the coconut genome and assessing the uses of genomics tools for coconut breeding and conservation.
2. Improvement and standardization of the controlled pollination technique for rejuvenation of coconut genebanks and urgent duplication of ageing coconut accessions.
3. Assessment and improvement of farmers’ technical and traditional knowledge regarding coconut biology, in order to increase farmers’ autonomy for production of good planting material.
4. Strengthening coconut genetic research, conservation and specific uses of traditional varieties in the Pacific Region.
5. Strengthening coconut research in Madagascar: characterization and conservation of traditional varieties in this context of earliest contact between the main 2 coconut genepools.
6. Collecting, conserving and breeding Dwarf coconut varieties from across the world within Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa.
7. Establishing an international multilocation coconut breeding experiment in Asia.
8. Understanding and addressing the constraint of the new lethal disease threatening the International Coconut Genebank for the South Pacific based in Papua New Guinea.
9. Developing In vitro culture and cryopreservation of embryogenic calluses and zygotic embryos as alternative coconut conservation strategies.
10. Strengthening communication on coconut research, conservation and use by producing video guidelines and other tools.

These 10 recommendations were endorsed by participants from the following 18 countries: Brazil, China, Côte d’Ivoire, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Sri Lanka, the Sultanate of Oman, Tanzania, Vanuatu and Vietnam. The full list of participants to the meeting is given here. The full text of the 10 international recommendations can be downloaded here, or each recommendation can be downloaded individually by clicking directly on its title.

The COGENT network would like to thank the institutions that contributed to the organization and the success of the 16th Steering Committee Meeting: the Government of India, The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the  Central Plantation Crop Research Institute (CPCRI), the Coconut Development Board of India (CDB), Bioversity International, the CGIAR Research Programme on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (CGIAR-CRP6), the Global Crop Diversity Trust, the French Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD), the Centre of Evolutionary and Functional Ecology (CEFE), the Asian and Pacific Coconut Community (APCC) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC).