Crop diversity is one of the world’s least recognized but most valuable resources. Individual crop varieties, such as the 200,000 varieties of wheat, have different traits for drought or heat tolerance, nutritional quality, disease resistance and every other possible characteristic.
Crop diversity is therefore the raw material for improving and adapting crops to meet all future challenges. Yet at the moment much of the world’s crop diversity is neither safely conserved, nor readily available to scientists and farmers who rely on it to safeguard agricultural productivity. Diversity is being lost, and with it the biological basis of our food supply.
The Global Crop Diversity Trust is the only worldwide response to this funding crisis. In a world where there are many important, and apparently overwhelming, issues demanding attention, it is important to note how the Trust differs from other organizations competing for donations
Its mission is achievable. It is rare that the world faces a major problem which has highly disturbing implications but an identifiable and achievable solution. This is preciselywhat the Trust offers; a costed, measurable plan, relying on existing institutions and simple proven technologies.