Genetic Vegetable resources, globally, involve a number of around 300,000 identified species, of which 30,000 are edible and only 30 consist of foods that feed the world's population. However, from this total, only three species provide 50% of proteins necessary in a regular diet (rice, wheat and corn). This situation has been stimulating a great number of researchers in the quest to increase the number of species dedicated to feed the population. Brazil is considered the world's greatest source of biological diversity, possessing something around 20% of the total of species in the planet and over 55,000 species of described plants (MRE-MMA, 2006), and some of the richest ecosystems (Amazon, Atlantic Forest and Cerrado).

Palm trees have been providing for human needs for centuries; fruits, palmito (heart of palm), shade, and edible oil, energy, wood, fibers and tens of oil byproducts. However, what is known about them is little or close to nothing. A great worry is the fact that palm populations suffer great anthropic pressure and their germoplasm banks and collections are in a vulnerable state.

This project's goal is to enrich, conserve, evaluate, characterize and document the germoplasm that exists in Active Banks and/or Germoplasm Collections of forest species and palm trees, for various uses. Also, it aims to characterize, morphologically and physiologically, fruits and seeds of native forest species of the Amazon region, in the long term, and for future use.

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