We often say that crop diversity is the foundation of food security, but you have to actually build a house on a foundation, to get the full benefit. So it’s instructive occasionally to consider all the myriad other things that have to go right for crop diversity to have an impact, quite apart from breeding. And it’s great to see recognition for an organization that works on a number of those things: the Queen’s Anniversary Prize was just awarded to the UK’s University of Greenwich for the cassava work of the Natural Resources Institute, which includes everything from pest and disease control to processing and product development. Congratulations!
And if you still want to read something about how to use cassava diversity to provide the foundation for all that cool stuff NRI does, The Economist has you covered.
