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New Knowledge Center for Biodiversity in Agriculture and Forestry Inaugurated by Nordic Ministers

Date: 2022.04.04

Contact: info@nordgen.org

Today, the 4^th of April, a new Nordic center for genetic resources was inaugurated by three Nordic ministers. From NordGen’s new house, both seeds and knowledge will be disseminated. All to facilitate the adaptation of Nordic agriculture to climate change and strengthen its competitiveness.

The Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen) is the Nordic countries’ joint gene bank and knowledge center for genetic resources. NordGen recently moved the operations to a new climate-certified building, which was officially inaugurated on Monday. A ribbon twisted of wool from finnsheep was cut by the Swedish Minister for Rural Affairs, Anna-Caren Sätherberg. Sandra Borch, the Norwegian Minister of Agriculture and Food, was also present together with Thomas Blomqvist, the Finnish Minister for Nordic Cooperation and Equality, and the Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers, Paula Lehtomäki.

Paula Lehtomäki, Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers

– I am pleased to be involved in inaugurating NordGen’s new facilities, which will provide the best conditions for the unique work that is being done here for a sustainable Nordic region, says Paula Lehtomäki.

Strengthened co-operation

In the new center, NordGen will further invest in research collaboration with universities and private companies to contribute to securing the future of Nordic agriculture.

Lise Lykke Steffensen, Executive Director of NordGen.

– This house inspires us to increase the collaborations with researchers and private actors that is required to adapt to climate changes and strengthen the competitiveness of Nordic agriculture. It is crucial to conserve, but also to use, the genetic diversity to be able to produce food in the future, says Lise Lykke Steffensen, NordGen’s director.

During the day, visitors got to go on a guided tour of NordGen’s building, which houses laboratories and the “Nordic region’s most important room”, where the Nordic seed collection consisting of over 33,000 seed samples is stored in freezers.

On the guided tour, the Nordic Ministers got a demonstration of NordGen’s seed laboratory.

NordGen participates in many different collaboration projects and holds the secretariat for the Nordic PPP co-operation, a partnership between public and private actors for preebreeding, a costly and time-consuming first step when developing new crops.

In one of the PPP-projects, over 300 different types of potatoes are studied, the knowledge will be used to develop the Nordic potato varieties that are better adapted to cope with diseases that most likely will become more common in the future.

– Climate change affects us all and it is very important that the Nordic countries co-operate on the major challenges we are facing. The genetic resources are significant to develop robust crops in the future, to succeed we need to increase the exchange of knowledge between private and public actors, says Lise Lykke Steffensen.

Wild resistance

NordGen’s greenhouse during the inauguration.

Another example is the pan-Nordic project “Crop Wild Relatives” in which wild plant species closely related to our cultivated crops are mapped and inventoried. The seeds of the most important wild plant species are also collected for conservation at NordGen. These wild plants carry genetic traits that are important for developing crops with a better resistance to drought, persistent rainfall and against insects and diseases – problems that will become more common as the climate changes.

Guests also got to visit NordGen’s greenhouse to look at some of the seedlings that are part of the seed cultivation. In the greenhouse, staff from the section NordGen Farm Animlas also informed about the 3MC project which aims to increase knowledge about the Mountain cattle in Finland, Norway and Sweden, and thereby save them for the future. The NordGen Forest section talked about the importance of genetic diversity and knowledge exchange for developing strong, resilient forests in the Nordic region.