Tackling Climate Change through Plant Breeding and Better Use of Plant Genetic Resources

The FAO tags climate change as a future major food security challenge. Climate change is threatening to push the number of hungry even higher in the decades to come, due to new challenges to agriculture and food production. Temperatures across the world could rise up to 6oC by 2050.The main challenges from climate change to agriculture and food production are the more frequent and severe drought and floods, and higher pressure from insects and diseases.

It is predicted that compared to 1990 undernourished people could be increased by 150% in the Middle East and North Africa and by 300% in sub-Saharan Africa by the year 2080.

Crop production under drought results in low yield, high production costs and less than desirable agronomic practices. Irrigation, a means to mitigate drought, has its own environmental and economic costs, making it an option not suitable to all scenarios.One of the effective ways for crop production to grow or at least to stay stable under new challenges from climate change is through improved varieties developed by plant breeding.The genetic diversity of crop plants is the foundation for the sustainable development of new varieties for present and future challenges. Resource-poor farmers have been using genetic diversity intelligently over centuries to develop varieties adapted to their own environmental stress conditions.