Together with the air we breathe and the water we drink, crop diversity is one of the most fundamentally important resources for human life on earth.This diversity is awe inspiring - there are more than 120,000 varieties of rice alone. It provides the natural, biological basis of our ability to grow the food required today, as well as to meet the challenges of population growth, changing climates and constantly evolving pests and diseases.

No country in the world is self-sufficient in crop diversity – agriculture everywhere depends on it. Yet this diversity, contained and stored in seeds, is at risk of disappearing. But we don’t have to sit back and let this happen.
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A looming catastrophe

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Norman Borlaug has issued a stark warning about wheat stem rust. The crop disease, which has has caused major famines throughout history, is on the march again, threatening to push all food prices even higher and cause further misery for the world's poor. Borlaug has called for more funds to avoid the looming catastrophe by developing rust-resistant varieties, using the world's seedbanks to search for resistance.
Read the New York Times article

The Mother of all Rice

Japanese sculptor Mitsuaki Tanabe has generously donated an extraordinary 9-metre solid steel sculpture of a grain of wild rice, which he has installed at the entrance to the Trust's offices within the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. The amazing, and dangerous, creative process used a technique unique to Tanabe, which involves operating at about 3,000 degrees.
See photos and read more in the Japan Times

The new face of hunger

Food prices are causing misery and unrest around the world. With a limited amount of fallow land easily available, food increases now need to come mainly from higher yields. More productive varieties are not available to farmers unless research work had been going on for years. And due to funding cuts, it has not.
Read The Economist article

CBS 60 Minutes - To the end of the Earth to save humankind



Starting at the Arctic Seed Vault, the investigative journalists from CBS 60 Minutes take a journey into the world of crop diversity conservation - and reveal the scale and the urgency of the challenge.

Wheat killer detected in Iran

A new and virulent wheat fungus, previously found in East Africa and Yemen, has moved to major wheat growing areas in Iran. Up to 80% of all wheat varieties planted in Asia and Africa are susceptible to the fungus, and its spores can be carried by wind over long distances and across continents. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said that countries east of Iran (like Afghanistan, India, Pakistan), all major wheat producers, should be on high alert.
Read the FAO press release

Global Seed Vault opens

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault opens its doors today to the first of millions of seeds which will be kept safe and secure here.
Read the press coverage here

Mari Tefre/Global Crop Diversity Trust

Doomsday Vault on BBC's Earth Report

Earth Report investigates: it’s a seed bank on a wild Arctic island 500 miles from the North Pole, a store for all the known varieties of the world’s crops. 'Doomsday Vault' will be broadcast on BBC World at the following times (all times quoted as UK time zone currently GMT): Friday 22nd February - 20:30, with repeats at 10:30 on Monday 25th, 15:30 on Tuesday 26th, and 02:30 and 08:30 on Wednesday 27th.



Visit the Earth Report site

Climate change could devastate crops

Climate change could cause severe crop losses in South Asia and southern Africa over the next twenty years, a study in the journal Science says. The scale and speed of the effects on agriculture surprised the authors, one of whom said: "For poor farmers on the margin of survival, these losses could really be crushing". The paper, based on research undertaken for the Global Crop Diversity Trust, states that development of new crop varieties will provide some of the biggest benefits in adapting to climate change.
Read the BBC article
Read the paper in Science

Generation Challenge Programme - Call for Proposals

The Generation Callenge Programme's vision is a future where plant breeders have the tools to breed crops in marginal environments, with greater efficiency and accuracy, for the benefit of resource-poor farmers and their families. The GCP has announced its 3rd call for proposals for competitive research read more
For GCP training events, fellowship and other grant opportunities read more

Wheat stem rust: new variant threatens global harvest

Researchers are intensifying efforts to stop wheat stem rust from consuming over 80% of the global wheat produce in the face of biting shortages and soaring prices in the international market. The disease also threatens barley and if not checked, it will be soon afflicting wheat fields in the Middle East and Asia. Increasing concern further, a new variant of the disease has also been found in Kenya, which has shown more resistance to existing treatment. read more