News

19 September 2016 - the Svalbard Global Seed Vault’s doors were opened as 53 new boxes of seeds arrived from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The shipment, which included nearly 20,000 accessions of different...

Luigi Guarino | Director of Science and Programs

Cows get a lot of bad press these days. They are blamed for climate change and deforestation and even unhealthy diets, as if it’s their fault that people like to scoff down...

Marie Haga | Marie's Corner

The job of the Crop Trust is to safeguard one of the world’s most important natural resources – namely plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. It is a big and many faceted responsibility....

Luigi Guarino| Director of Science and Programs

There’s a question I’m asked a lot when I give introductory talks about the Crop Trust: what do we have against in situ conservation?

“In situ” is a bit of unlovely jargon for the...

Luigi Guarino | Director of Science and Programs

I have a list somewhere of all the crops that have, at one time or another, been called the “key” to healthy diets, and even to global food security. It’s a long list – but rye is...

Genebanks safeguard and make available the genetic diversity of our food crops. This is a critically important endeavor, but protecting and sharing plant materials – seeds, tissues in test tubes etc. – alone is not enough. Beyond...

Marie Haga | Marie's Corner

We have decided to collect our main activities during the months of June and July and present you with a summer Newsletter edition. I hope you appreciate the following summary:

Enhancing the...

This week, I’d like to use this blog to introduce a new colleague here at the Crop Trust. His name is Dr Benjamin Kilian, and he’ll be working on our project on crop wild relatives, mainly looking after the pre-breeding component....

Luigi Guarino | Director of Science and Programs 

OMG! Look, over there! Mewtwo! Quick, let’s catch it

Oh, I’m sorry, did I distract you from your own Pokémon Go? Seems like everybody’s at it these days. You see devotees on the...

Luigi Guarino | Director of Science and Programs

My friend Ali Lawati is upset with me. He works on plant genetic resources conservation in Oman, and we’ve known each other for over twenty years, ever since we tried to collect...

Bananas originated in South and Southeast Asia, and are now produced throughout the world’s tropics and eaten in at least 192 countries worldwide. Quinoa came from the South American Andes, and is currently cultivated in almost...