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From cutting-edge research to work saving seeds in communities, even our small actions can have a big impact on saving crop diversity and putting it to good use. Read the latest news highlighting these efforts and more.

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Rice: A Story of Heritage
News

Rice: A Story of Heritage

6 Dec 2024

Keeping Malan Alive in Central Kalimantan
News

Keeping Malan Alive in Central Kalimantan

Papa Dewi looked out at fields covered with a kaleidoscope of crops: rice, cowpea, eggplant, maize, and more. “This is our way of life,” said the Dayak farmer from Indonesia’s Central Kalimantan. “This is malan.”

Malan means...

18 Jun 2024

News

Saving Every Grain of Rice: A Q&A with Jerry Tjoe Awie

Jerry Tjoe Awie is a rice breeder. The only one in Suriname, a small country on the northeastern coast of South America. Jerry is also the Director of the Anne van Dijk Rice Research Centre (ADRON), Suriname’s national rice...

30 Jan 2024

News

Crop Diversity: A Tasty Way for Keeping Our Options Open

On 19 September, scientists, policymakers and other crop diversity enthusiasts, flocked to Mindspace in Williamsburg, one of Brooklyn’s foodiest neighborhoods, to address one of the most pressing challenges of our time—how to...

22 Sep 2023

Farmers Know Best: Developing Salt-Tolerant Rice in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta
News

Farmers Know Best: Developing Salt-Tolerant Rice in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta

Just like everybody needs somebody to love, every new crop variety needs a farmer.

Developing better seeds that can withstand the effects of climate change is only valuable if farmers show them a little love, and actually want to...

22 Jun 2021

22 Jun 2021

Trolley in Svalbard deposit tunnel
News

Strawberry Seeds Deposited at the First Svalbard Global Seed Vault Opening of 2021

FAO’s International Year of Fruits and Vegetables is being recognized all around the globe—including at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Among the first deposits of 2021 were seeds of watermelon, strawberry and pumpkin. The...

18 Feb 2021

18 Feb 2021

workers in field thumbnail
News

In Vietnam: Farmers Evaluate Wild Rice-derived Lines

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...

31 Jul 2019

31 Jul 2019

News

Seed Sorting: From Harvest to Genebank

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...

11 Jun 2019

News

A Homecoming for Rice

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...

12 Apr 2019

12 Apr 2019

Illustration of scientist holding wheat
News

Genebanks Are Supposed To Be Forever

Luigi Guarino | Director of Science and Programs

For as long ahead as we can usefully think, breeders, researchers, and indeed farmers, will need genebanks to help them get hold of seeds.

Those seeds are the key to ensuring...

12 Oct 2018

12 Oct 2018

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