The BOLD Project
Start year: 2021
Biodiversity for Opportunities, Livelihoods and Development (BOLD) is a 10-year project to strengthen food and nutrition security worldwide by supporting the conservation and use of crop diversity.
Harnessing Crop Diversity To Adapt To The Climate Crisis
Funded with USD 58 million from the Government of Norway and launched in 2021, it builds on the work and achievements of the decade-long Crop Wild Relatives Project (2011-2021).
BOLD will support 15 national genebanks worldwide to conserve their existing collections, develop new crop diversity through partnerships with breeders, and collaborate with farmers to use that diversity in their fields.
Diversity For Long-term Impact
BOLD directly contributes to Target 2.5 of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 2 to “maintain the genetic diversity of seeds, cultivated plants and farmed and domesticated animals and their related wild species, including through soundly managed and diversified seed and plant banks at the national, regional and international levels, and promote access to and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge.”
Biodiversity is crucial for sustainable food systems. This understanding is part of the reason for Norway’s establishment of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. We are pleased to support BOLD as it effectively translates conservation of crop diversity in genebanks into development outcomes related to food security.
Related News
How Wild Potato Genes Can Help East African Farmers Beat the ‘Chemical Tax’
For many smallholder farmers in the tropical highlands of East Africa, the dream of a bountiful potato harvest is increasingly overshadowed by a ‘chemical tax.’ Disease pressure keeps farmers trapped in a costly cycle – spraying...
5 Jun 2026
Sweetpotato Leaves à la Singida
The sun is barely up when I meet Jasmin Salum in her family’s irrigated plot in Mumbivi, a small village just outside Singida in central Tanzania. The air is cool, still holding the last traces of night. The only sound is the...
3 Jun 2026
The Genetic Memory of the Potato: How Andean Diversity Shapes New Varieties for East African Farms
While there are many ways to prepare them, modern potatoes are bred from a relatively narrow genetic pool. And yet, the diseases attacking potatoes continue to evolve. In East Africa’s highland potato fields, breeders and farmers...
28 May 2026
Key Partners
Crop Trust (facilitator)
- International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (Plant Treaty)
- Nordic Genetic Resource Center
- Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU)
- Svalbard Global Seed Vault
Supporters
- Government of Norway


