I don't take hallucinogenic drugs and I don't suppose you do either.

So can you explain how it is that agriculture is now facing an historically unprecedented combination of major challenges and crises and yet most people - even in the agricultural community - seem remarkably complacent? It's as if a big truck were speeding straight towards us on a narrow, one-way road, but we've decided not to talk about it because we can't quite bring ourselves to believe it's real. But it is.

What challenges and crises?

Climate Change

The debate has shifted from whether the climate is changing to how we are going to deal with it. The Earth has warmed about 0.7 degrees Celsius in the last 100 years. A further rise of 1.4-6 degrees is predicted for the next hundred. The dozen warmest years on record have all occurred since 1990, last year being the warmest of all. Say hello to the climate of the dinosaurs. Many species on earth today have never experienced such an environment. Some are beginning to move territorial ranges - which should tell us something. But early results are mixed, which should tell us something more.

In the prestigious Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, Dr. Camille Parmesan reports overwhelming evidence of the impact of climate change on plant and animal species. Parmesan says "we are finally seeing species going extinct. Now we've got the evidence. It's here. It's real. This is not just biologists' intuition. It's what's happening." Her evidence? Findings from a survey of 866 published scientific studies.

The recently released and much-publicized Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change in the UK - "the most important report on the future published by the Government in our time in office," according to Tony Blair - leaves no doubt. Climate change is here. No one escapes, but developing countries are most vulnerable and the impact to agriculture will be dramatic. "Declining crop yields are likely to leave hundreds of millions without the ability to produce or purchase sufficient food," according to the report. Both mitigation and adaptation measures are needed now, Lord Stern warns. New crop varieties will be essential, he contends.

Climate change will affect modern industrialized agriculture and small scale subsistence agriculture alike. We will not simply or routinely be able to move existing crop varieties northward because such shifts would introduce additional factors requiring adaptation: changes in day-length period (which often affects flowering, for example), cloud cover, rainfall, soil conditions, pests and diseases, not to mention different farming cultures and economies. We need instead to be thinking about how we will produce climate-ready crop varieties.

In this context, the genetic diversity found in genebanks today may become the most important resource we have in shaping an effective response to climate change. At the least, it will be a basic prerequisite for success.

Water

The first in our series of Crop Diversity Topics dealt with the issue of water. As we pointed out then, agriculture takes 70% of the world's annual fresh water supplies, but with increasing competition from urban areas and industry. Water withdrawals from rivers and lakes have doubled since 1960, and exceed replenishment in many areas. The groundwater "overdraft" is 25% in China and 56% in parts of India according to UNDP's Human Development Report for 2006.

Dryland areas are home to a third of the world's population and have the highest population growth rate. But, they have only 8% of the world's renewable water supply. Global demand is expected to grow between 30-85% by 2050, yet it is not at all clear that supply can match demand where the need is greatest. And, climate change is likely to make matters worse, precisely in these areas.

Water constraints are already painfully evident. Australia is in its sixth year of extreme drought. The suicide rate among farmers is twice the national average. Large parts of Africa are also experiencing severe drought. The positive news is that genebank collections are now being screened through efforts such as the Generation Challenge Programme (with whom we have a partnership) for genes that will help crop varieties become more tolerant, resilient and productive in the face of drought and heat-stress.

Energy

Type the term "peak oil" into Google and you get 1,500,000 hits. The moment is coming when oil and natural gas production will decline, even with the tap wide open. U.S. production has already peaked, officially. Ditto for the North Sea and Prudhoe Bay. There are suspicions about Saudi Arabia's largest field, Ghawar. Some experts believe global production will top out this year or next. Current consumption of oil is running ahead of discoveries (which peaked in the 1960s) by a factor of four. Hardly sustainable. Albert Bartlett contends in the Journal of American Petroleum Geologists that we are now consuming the last 25% of our oil resources. Quibble with the numbers, but we know non-renewable resources are, well, exhaustible.

We shouldn't pretend this will not affect agriculture. Consider fertilizer and the correlation between its use and crop yields. Half of all synthetic nitrogen fertilizer ever used has been applied since 1985. It's one reason we have been able to cope with 1.7 billion more people to feed without a concomitant increase in the number of hungry. And yet, there are signs that fertilizer use is now dropping. The production of nitrogen fertilizers requires particularly large amounts of natural gas and that means that fertilizer costs - one of the largest variable cost components in maize and wheat production - are on the rise, constraining use, and placing a greater premium on future advances in plant breeding and farming practices.

Climate change. Water and energy constraints. Three major challenges to add to an already dicey situation in which both cereal yields and per capita production are stagnating and global stocks are at their lowest point since the early 1970s. Then, supply and demand disequilibrium coupled with other factors such as drought in Africa sparked what became known as the "world food crisis." And the world watched children starve on TV.

Crop diversity is both a tool for building food security today and an insurance policy securing the future. But this doesn't mean that the resource is secure. In fact, more than half the genebanks in developing countries report that their budgets have declined or remained static since 1996 when the FAO Global Plan of Action committed all countries to improvements to a then-inadequate system. Diversity, options and solutions are being lost in genes that will never exist again.

The crops that feed the world are on a collision course with climate change, water and energy constraints and expanding populations. A perfect storm is brewing. Can the world weather these challenges without recourse to crop diversity? Can one imagine agriculture adapting to climate change when crops can't?

M.S. Swaminathan, the father of the Green Revolution in India, recently observed that "if agriculture goes wrong, nothing else will have the chance to go right." We would add that if crop diversity is not saved, nothing else will be.

We will return to the themes of climate change, water and energy often in coming issues of Crop Diversity Topics. Each is important in itself; the combination represents a fundamental challenge for agriculture, one which can only be met with the aid of the biological resources that underpin adaptation in agricultural crops, thus the Trust's interest and role. All past issues of Crop Diversity Topics remain available on our website, and email subscriptions are free. If you like this service, tell others about it. They can sign up on our website.

The Trust is still building its trust fund, the income from which will serve effectively to guarantee the conservation and availability of priority crop diversity collections in perpetuity. No donation is too small. Contributions from U.S. citizens are tax-deductible under U.S. law.

In-kind contributions are also welcomed, and we would like to announce and express our appreciation for three very important and valuable ones:

• The Government of Australia will provide a senior staff person to us for a year, free-of-charge, to serve as our first director of programmes and establish a number of critical administrative systems. We anticipate the individual will be identified soon.
• Sweden will provide an "Associate Professional Officer" to us for a period of two years.
  This "junior expert" will have a scientific background and assist in our technical work.
• Finally, the Netherlands, at our request, has agreed to offer the services of Dr. Bert Visser to the Trust at the level of 20% for two years. Dr. Visser is Director of the Centre for Genetic Resources in Wageningen and one of our field's leading scientific and policy experts.