**8. The evolution of genebanks**

The erosion of genetic diversity of plant species is a global concern and a threat to food security. This has continued to stretch the stability of agriculture globally and negatively impacted market demand. The creation of genebanks in the 20th century was strategic and a recovery move to conserve local varieties (landraces). Ever since its creation, there have been some bottlenecks limiting the progress [22], outlined the outcome of the genebank workshop held in Spain in 2014. At the workshop, stakeholders summarized some of the shortcomings of genebanks since their creation. They include inefficient coordination of species across genebanks; insufficient phenotyping, genotyping, and epiphenotyping; and noticing unnoticed duplicates and lack of enough funding among other challenges outlined.

Today, there are about 1750 genebanks in the world housing millions of plant accessions and their wild relatives. Globally about 7.4 million plant accessions are banked ex situ in over 1750 genebank facilities. In conservation and utilization of crop diversity, genebanks are invaluable. It supports germplasm exchange, international ex situ collections, mining of genetic resources, and safeguarding of distinct species [23, 24].
