In 1969, The FAO’s Crop Ecology Unit sponsored the first attempt to develop a standardized, computerized data bank for the world’s genetic resources so that breeders can locate the germplasm they need. In 1970, the USDA’s Germplasm Resources Information Network, GRIN, the remnant of the effort that began a year earlier to computerize germplasm collections worldwide, goes on-line; but GRIN covers only those collections in the U.S.

In 2014, the FAO published Genebank Standards that encouraged active genebank management, and provided for a set of complementary approaches to help genebank managers maintain the world�s over 1,750 genebanks which differ greatly in the size of their collections and the human and financial resources at their disposal.