Crop Diversity - Organizations, Technology and Solutions

Organizations, Technology and Solutions

The implications of crop diversity are at both the local and world level, and numerous organizations are emerging with great global backing in response to this ideology. International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI – now known as Bioversity International), the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (ITTA), the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, and the International Network for Improvement of Banana and Plantain (INIBAP) are a few of the most prominent. Members of the United Nations, at the World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002 at Johannesburg, said that crop diversity is in danger of being lost if measures are not taken. One such step taken in the action against the loss of biodiversity among crops is called gene banking. There are a number of organizations that enlist teams of local farmers to grow native varieties, particularly those that are threatened by extinction due to lack of modern-day use. There are also local, national and international efforts to preserve agricultural genetic resources through ex situ (off-site) methods such as seed and sperm banks for further research and/or crop breeding. Some of the major germplasm storage efforts include:

• The Global Crop Diversity Trust is an independent international organisation which exists to ensure the conservation and availability of crop diversity for food security worldwide. It was established through a partnership between the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) acting through Bioversity International.

• The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is a consortium of International Agriculture Research Centers (IARC) and others that each conduct research on and preserve germplasm from a particular crop or animal species. The CGIAR holds one of the world's largest off site collections of plant genetic resources in trust for the world community. It contains over 500,000 accessions of more than 3,000 crop, forage, and agro-forestry species. The collection includes farmers' varieties and improved varieties and, in substantial measure, the wild species from which those varieties were created.

• National germplasm storage centers including the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation, India's National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources (NBAGR), the Taiwan Livestock Research Institute, and the Australian Network of Plant Genetic Resource Centers.

• Organizations such as the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Conservation Union (IUCN) are non-profit organizations that provide funding and other support to off site and on site conservation efforts. The wise use of crop genetic diversity in plant breeding and genetic modification can also contribute significantly to protecting the biodiversity in crops. Crop varieties with specifically modified genes grow resistances to pests and diseases. One successful example of this is the insertion of the gene from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis.

• Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is a soil bacterium that produces a natural insecticide toxin.

• Genes from Bt can be inserted into crop plants to make them capable of producing an insecticidal toxin and therefore a resistance to certain pests.

• There are no known adverse human health effects associated with Bt corn.

• Bt corn can adversely affect non-target insects if they are closely related to the target pest, as is the case with Monarch butterfly. These adverse effects are considered minor, relative to those associated with the alternative of blanket insecticide applications.