Much harm has been done. In the past century about three-quarters of global crop genetic diversity is thought to have been lost, and with it many potentially beneficial traits. Preserving what remains is an insurance policy against the effects of climate change: Britain’s Millennium Seed Bank, the world’s largest, cost £73m ($112m) to complete in 2010. The damage from the brown planthopper came to $1 billion in today’s money. Governments should share species and fund seed banks. Their work is a vital safeguard against hunger.
That’s from a leader in The Economist, one of three pieces on the conservation and use of crop diversity in this week’s issue. Which the writers got through without even once mentioning Svalbard, but were not, alas, able to negotiate without resorting to the dreaded 75% number. On balance, though, I’ll take it.
By what measure is the MSB the world’s largest, I wonder?
My comment to the `Economist’
Why should crop monocultures carry great risks? All crops evolved from wild relatives. Many wild relatives, particularly of the all-important cereals, grow in natural highly stable `monocultures’, something grasses are good at. It is most likely that the monoculture gene or genes passed from wild relatives to crops in fields: the selection pressure for this must have been great. Instead of just playing around in laboratories with genomics, how about some serious ecological field work to find out just how crop wild relatives maintain their pure stands in natural vegetation?