News

Of humanity’s essential food crops, perhaps none is less honored than Phaseolus vulgaris, labeled in both Latin and English as the “common bean”. Although it is certainly common, and ever-present in many of the world’s great...

Abdellah Bounagua clutched the stone tightly in his weathered hands. With it, he could cast one vote. The durum wheat farmer from Marchouch in northern Morocco wanted to make sure he voted wisely.

He ran his hands through the...

The Crop Trust’s global #CropsInColor campaign, with additional support from the Oak Spring Garden, and with Food Tank as an official media partner, has as its next stop: the richly diverse mountains of the southeastern United...

Marie Haga | Marie's Corner

After very careful consideration and with a heavy heart, I have decided to resign from my position as Executive Director of the Crop Trust. I have been offered the position of Associate Vice President...

We recently visited our Crop Wild Relatives partners at the Mekong Delta Development Research Institute, Can Tho University, in Vietnam. Professor Huynh Quang Tin is leading a participatory plant breeding (PPB) initiative where 13...

Luigi Guarino | Director of Science

Whenever the subject of the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (the Treaty) comes up, I automatically think of the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire. The movie was...

Keeping up with the demand for rice seeds: The automation of seed sorting at the International Rice Genebank

To an untrained eye, all sheep in a paddock look alike. But shepherds can call all the sheep in their flock by name and...

Coffea arabica is a diverse species. Yet a 2014 study of farmed and wild plants found that only a fraction of the species’ genetic diversity is represented in cultivated coffees. Wild arabica is certain to hold many more...

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...