Plant genetic resources for food security

World agriculture has been spectacularly successful this century in meeting the demand for more food. But with the increase in population not expected to level out until the 9 billion mark is reached, a huge challenge faces us. FAO estimates that food production must increase by more than 75% in the next 50 years. At the same time, urbanization and changing lifestyles will intensify demand for a more diverse range of food products. Agricultural production will need to increase at a rate never previously attained.

To meet the need for more food, it will be necessary to make better use of a broader range of the world’s plant genetic diversity. Increasing the productivity of crops will strengthen food security. To do this, farmers will require new crop varieties capable of producing under diverse conditions, without ever-increasing amounts of fertilizers and other agrochemicals. Because of the limited scope for growth in the world’s cultivated area, each new generation of cultivated varieties will have to be more productive than its predecessors.

Using diversity
Food insecurity -- both now and in the future -- is not limited to developing countries; according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)'s 1999 Report on the State of Food Insecurity in the World, 8 million people in industrialized countries and 26 million in countries in transition are undernourished. However, the close link between poverty and hunger means that developing countries are exceedingly hard hit. Today, according to the most recent figures released by the FAO nearly 800 million people in the developing world do not have enough to eat. At the 1996 World Food Summit, the world's leaders pledged to reduce this number by half by the year 2015. At our current rate of progress, there is no way of meeting that goal.

Genetic diversity gives species the ability to adapt to changing environments, including new pests and diseases and new climatic conditions. Plant genetic resources - the component of genetic diversity of actual or potential use to humanity - provide the raw material for breeding new varieties of crops. These, in turn, provide a basis for more productive and resilient production systems that are better able to cope with such stresses as drought or overgrazing and that can reduce the potential for soil erosion. The use of genetic diversity to produce stronger, more productive crops -- on-farm, through field experimentation or in sophisticated gene transfer procedures in the lab -- remains arguably the best route to securing our food security and that of our children.

Farmers can improve their ability to meet their food needs by growing a diversity of crop varieties. Different varieties may have different tastes, may ripen at different times or have different cooking qualities. Some grow well in sandy soils while others may need a great deal of water. Importantly, the genetic diversity contained in different varieties provides farmers and professional plant breeders with options to develop, through selection and breeding, new and more productive crops, crops that are resistant to pests and diseases. The result may be a vast diversity of crop varieties grown by farmers in any one area.

Perhaps the most powerful argument for maintaining diversity in agricultural production systems is to guard against the instability that can result from its absence. The Irish potato famine, in which perhaps 1.5 million people died and another 1.5 million emigrated, is probably the most famous and poignant example of a disaster that can result from too heavy a reliance on a limited number of crops and crop varieties.

The value of diversity goes well beyond its ability to support stable production systems in marginal environments. The world's population is still growing by an estimated 80 million people a year. This growth will bring with it a tremendous increase in food requirements.

Yet genetic resources are disappearing at unprecedented rates. More than 15 million hectares of tropical forest are lost each year, and experts estimate that as much as 8% of plant species could disappear in the next 25 years. Over the past 50 years, new uniform crop varieties have replaced many thousands of local varieties over huge areas of production. Such reductions have serious implications for food security over the long term.

Plant genetic resources are vital in meeting the food challenges we face today and tomorrow. The wise use and management of genetic diversity is perhaps one of the best ways to guarantee our ability to use agriculture to continue, sustain, and hopefully to improve, our lives and those of our children.

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