The Finnish National Programme for Plant Genetic Resources was established in 2003 to facilitate the conservation of agricultural and forest genetic resources in Finland. MTT Agrifood Research Finland is responsible for the coordination of the programme and for the preservation of field and horticultural crop genetic resources. According to the Finnish constitution, all citizens and organizations are responsible for nature, its diversity, the environment and Finnish cultural heritage, and thus all contribute to the realization of the programme. The guidelines for the long-term conservation of vegetables, herbs and medicinal plants describe the practical implementation of the gene resource preservation. Guidelines are given for those species/genera that are found in the present Finnish collections or those that have pontential in the future. The species/genera included are onions (Allium ssp), Brassicas turnip, swede, cababges and seakale, rhubarb (Rheum L.), horse radish (Amoracia rusticana), mints (Mentha ssp.), mountain-tobacco (Arnica montana L), swet-flag (Acorus calamus L.) and hop (Humulus lupulus L.). The guidelines describe the present scope of MTT s collections of vegetables, herbs and medicinal plants. The criteria for selecting material to be preserved are also presented. Instructions are included for the establishment and renewal of collections and for selecting alternative preservation methods. At present collections are preserved mainly as seeds and in field gene banks; species-specific cryopreservation applications are still under development and the equipment required for the preservation has only recently been acquired. For the future, plans call for the most valuable material to be cryopreserved, because open-air field gene banks are subject to disease, pests and variable weather conditions. In some cases, maintaining plant material under slow growth conditions in vitro is appropriate.