El País: Wild Wheat - The Key to Food Security in a Warming World
Farmers have saved a billion liters of fungicide through disease-resistant wheat varieties, which owe their resilience to genes from wild relatives. However, climate change and evolving pathogens require further research into...
30 Sep 2024
Food Tank: From Neglect to Nourishment - Africa’s New Plan to Revitalize Vegetable Biodiversity
A new initiative led by the World Vegetable Center aims to address hunger, malnutrition, poverty, and the climate crisis by rescuing and conserving the biodiversity of African vegetables.
The launch of the African Vegetable...
17 Sep 2024
Forbes: Top Banana - America’s Favorite Fruit Confronts An Uncertain Future
It’s easy to take bananas for granted. Walk into any U.S. supermarket, no matter how poorly stocked, and there they are. Bananas top the list of fresh fruit sold in this country—the average American consumes nearly 27 pounds of...
3 Jul 2024
The Africa Report: Safeguarding Africa’s Diverse Food Crop Seed Collections Against Climate Threats
Plant scientists from across Africa and around the world deposited seeds of their most important produce in the Arctic’s Svalbard Global Seed Vault in late May in a bid to protect global food security.
An African eggplant with...
12 Jun 2024
Devex: How Genebanks Act as Guardians Against Climate Uncertainty
Biodiversity loss, climate change, and food insecurity are daunting, interconnected challenges that can seem insurmountable. As record-breaking temperatures persist and climate change escalates, the myriad solutions proposed often...
11 Jun 2024
BBC: How Crops Are Being Disaster-proofed
Christine Ro,Technology Reporter for the BBC, writes about the strategies scientists are using to disaster-proof crops against diseases and climate change.
Late blight is an old foe of humans. This disease catalysed the...
14 May 2024
Reuters: Crop Trust Seeks More Funding to Protect Global Seed Diversity
RABAT, April 20 (Reuters) - Crop Trust, which works to preserve crop bio-diversity, needs to more than double its $300 million endowment fund to be able to support seed banks across the world, Executive Director Stefan Schmitz...
20 Apr 2024
Reuters: Svalbard’s doomsday vault gets record batch of global crop seeds
Terje Solsvik reports on the recent deposit to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault for Reuters:
A frozen Arctic vault built to preserve global agricultural crops from extinction received seeds on Tuesday from the largest number of new...
28 Feb 2024
How Rice Hidden by a Woman Fleeing Slavery in the 1700s Could Help Her Descendants
Descendants of enslaved Africans in Suriname, known as the Saamaka Maroons, cultivated a unique rice variety which they hid in their hair when fleeing plantations in the 17th century. The Anne van Dijk Rice Research Center (SNRI/A...
30 Jan 2024