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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.
Latest Article
Safeguarding Indonesian Crop Diversity: A Q&A with Standy Christianto
The Borneo Institute Foundation (BIT) was founded in 2007 to support the independence and culture of Indonesia’s Dayak community. Based in Central Kalimantan, a region rich in biodiversity, BIT works with farmers in the Manuhing...
12 Feb 2025
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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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Wild Plants from Four Continents Deliver Climate Change Lifeline for Crops
Nearly 5,000 seed samples of crop wild relatives saved in challenging, six-year effort to secure the future of food.
Bonn, Germany and Washington, DC (3 DECEMBER 2019)—As the world grapples with the challenge of sustainably...
12 Mar 2019
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