Users assess the impact of Bioversity's Banana Transit Centre

One of Bioversity’s mandated responsibilities is the Musa International Transit Centre which maintains and distributes banana and plantain diversity.

The ITC holds the largest Musa collection in the world, with over 1300 accessions (samples). It distributes more than 300 of these each year, as virus-free plantlets.

But how well does the ITC serve the banana community, and how could it be improved?

A survey of users revealed that the centre is vital for their research and often the only source of improved planting material. An important factor for scientists from national research agricultural research institutions in developing countries was that the germplasm is free.

There were also some suggestions about how things could be improved including encouraging researchers who receive material to share the results of their research to expand the centre's documentation.

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