History

The initiation of the activity of collecting and preserving seeds of plant species from the group of industrial plants began in 2007 within the framework of the SEEDNet (South East European Development Network on plant genetic resources) program financed by the Swedish agency SIDA (Swedish International Development Agency), in which several institutions, from the Republic of Croatia, were involved.

In June 2013, with the aim of implementing activities related to the preservation of plant genetic resources at the national level, the Commission for Plant Genetic Resources was established in the Ministry of Agriculture, which includes a representative from the Industrial Plants working group.

In 2018, a field collection of old potato populations was established at the experimental field of the Department of Field Crops, Forage and Grassland, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Agriculture, which is expanded annually with newly collected populations. In addition, potato samples in vegetative form are maintained on-farm in the area where they were collected.

The aforementioned activities are currently publicly funded by the Republic of Croatia and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD).