IFPRI has just published a review of the strategies that the 10 countries that make up ASARECA, the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa, plan to use to adapt to climate change. Only two strategies are common to all 10 countries: “the development and promotion of drought-tolerant and early-maturing crop species and exploitation of new and renewable energy sources”. Leave aside that the second strategy encompasses biofuels, and there’s still something else striking about the strategies.
Strangely, only one country recognizes the conservation of genetic resources as an important strategy although this is also potentially important for dealing with drought.
That country is Burundi, which we heartily applaud.
The point is not that each country should independently set out to conserve genetic resources; that would be inefficient and wasteful. But they ought at least to acknowledge the importance of conservation. And ASARECA could, at the very least, promote the International Seed Treaty and encourage members to prioritize collection of the most threatened crops and wild relatives. IFPRI could help by recognizing that genetic resources — agricultural biodiversity — underpin far more of the strategies than adaptation to drought.