Latest

Marie Haga | Marie's Corner

Most of us have some wild relatives in our families. I can think of some in my own. It’s the same with crops – they too have their wild sisters and brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles. I will not speak...

Luigi Guarino | Director of Science

I don’t like the International Day for Biological Diversity much.

I mean, I’m fine with the concept. It would of course be better if there were no need to regularly point out how important...

Recipient of the inaugural Crop Trust Legacy Award David Ellis was once asked how to prepare for a career as a genebank scientist. “There’s no fricking way,” he responded. “You not only have to be well grounded in science but you...

In March 1949, a group of experts started a special kind of coffee plantation on the land of the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) at Turrialba, in the center of Costa Rica. They planted 23...

Luigi Guarino | Director of Science

Luigi Guarino | Director of Science 

My mother-in-law, Hilda Gathoni, has been growing tea for most of her 83 years. The same tea. The tea she and her family also drink. It’s about one and a half hectares in the highlands above...

AfricaRice will open its new genebank later this year, in Mbe, Côte d’Ivoire, more than a decade after the center re-located to Benin during a civil war. But first, all its rice had to be sent back to Cote d’Ivoire after being...

Increasing temperatures are pushing potato farmers higher up the Peruvian Andes. But what if rather than trying to escape climate change, they confront it? They need to plant potatoes that are more resistant to threats, but those...

Luigi Guarino | Director of Science