'Conserving crop diversity essential to achieve zero hunger'

With the twin challenges of population growth and climate change, there is a need to conserve native seeds from the world over that will help in achieving food security, a top Crop Trust executive has said.
"In order to achieve zero hunger and food security, there is a need to ensure the long-term conservation and use of crop diversity worldwide. Natural diversity can be used as building blocks of agriculture or raw material to improve crop through traditional breeding in time of need," Crop Trust Executive Director Marie Haga told PTI here.
Crop Trust is an international organisation working to safeguard crop diversity.

Haga said there has already been a tremendous amount of indigenous varieties lost in many parts of the world.
India has lost 90 per cent of rice varieties since 1900, China has lost 90 per cent of rice varieties since 1950, Mexico has lost 80 per cent of corn varieties since 1900.
In the USA, 90 per cent of fruit and vegetable varieties have been lost since 1900, according to Crop Trust.

"We have 2,00,000 varieties of rice and 4,500 varieties of potato in the world. Similarly, there are lots of varieties of each food grains, fruits and vegetables, pulses among others."

"We are concerned about preserving them as one of them might have traits that can be utilised in future that can resist heat and climate among other things," she said.
The conservation of diversity is also essential as it can bring farmers more and better options in the future, to be more competitive and secure, she said.
"India is conscious about the importance of crop diversity and has very good gene banks compared to many other countries. The awareness level is also very good," Haga said.