Safeguarding the Foundation of Our Food Marie Haga Executive Director

Celebrating Crop Diversity, and Safeguarding the foundation of our food

Marie Haga Executive Director, Crop Trust

1 The Challenge Ahead

Produce enough food that is:

Good for you Good for farmers Good for the planet

2 We depend on a shockingly fragile foundation four our food

Agricultural Yet 75% of And only 4 biodiversity our plant- crops provides more based account for than 30k edible calories more than crops depend on 60%... only 12 crops

3 4 5 6 Loss of Diversity

China lost 90% of rice varieties since 1950 Mexico lost 80% of corn varieties since 1900 India lost 90% of rice varieties since 1900 USA lost 90% of fruit and vegetable varieties since 1900 Germany all apples grown now originate from only 6 varieties

7 Loss of Diversity

• Thousands of different apple varieties • Today all major apple varieties grown in Germany originate from only 6 varieties • Crop diversity disappearing from landscapes everywhere

8 The Importance of Crop Diversity

• Several million crop varieties worldwide

• Natural diversity as a raw material for crop improvement through traditional breeding

99 The Importance of Crop Diversity

ALL are important because ONE might have the trait to adapt to a changing climate, increase nutritious value, fight disease, or produce higher yields

1010 Why put biodiversity to work?

• Produce more food • Increase nutritional value • Fight new pests and diseases • Adapt agriculture to climate change • Reduce agriculture’s environmental footprint

1111 The Bermuda Bean

A wild bean species that is resilient to tropical storms • Vigorous root system which evolved over millennia • As extreme weather events become more frequent, Bermuda bean could play a part in ensuring greater food security

1212 13 Interdependence

14 Conserving crops

We can’t retrieve what we have In situ conservation lost so far, but we can protect what we have – and make it available

Ex situ conservation 15 Crop Trust mission

To develop and sustain a global, rational and cost- effective system of ex situ conservation of crop diversity

1616 Three Pillars to a Global System

International Key national & Svalbard Global Collections regional collections Seed Vault

17 1. International Genebanks

18 Essential core operations

19 2. Key national & regional collections

20 Rescue mission • 74,705 regenerated and now available • 3,675 put in vitro • 12,255 not viable Safety duplication • 32,917 accessions • 43 countries

2121 At Risk

• Natural disasters • National Genebank of Nepal (top) Earthquake (2015) Nepal • Philippines National Genebank (bottom) • Man-made disasters (e.g. military conflict) • Poor management or insufficient funding

Fire (2012) Philippines 22 3. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault

23 2424 2525 2626 2727 2828 2929 3030 Global system: proof of concept

Diversity from the fertile crescent conserved in Syria in ICARDA, saved in Svalbard Seed vault, returned to Lebanon & Morocco

3131 Global system: proof of concept

Collected from the High Andes, conserved in CIP for 30 years – returned to the communities

3232 33 A Global System of Genebanks Cost of the Global System

Only USD 34 million per year or an Endowment Fund of USD 850 million

34 Endowment Fund

300 Book Value vs Cumulative Contribution 250

200

Millions 150 34.6m withdrawn & used to support 100 Genebank platform & Operations since 50 2005

2017 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2018 2019

Book value cumulative contribution February

35 Funding the IRRI Genebank Forever

36 FundingFunding thethe IRRIIRRI GenebankGenebank ForeverForever

3740 Funding the IRRI Genebank Forever

38 Crop Wild Relatives

3939 40 Domestication bottlenecks

Wild progenitor Landraces Modern varieties

41 The CWR Project

Collecting and Using CWR: Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change

• Collecting and pre-breeding • 10-year project • Funded by the Norwegian Government • 29 crop genepools • More than 50 national partners • All material made available under the terms of the Multilateral System

42 Global hotspots for collecting CWR

Castañeda-Álvarez et al. 2016 Global conservation priorities for crop wild relatives. Nature Plants. doi:10.1038/NPLANTS.2016.2 2

43 Support for 24 countries to collect CWR

Project Country CWR genepools to be collected Project period Country CWRCoungenepoolstry CWRto gbeenecollectedpools to be collected Project period period potato, finger millet, rice, pearl wheat, oat, carrot, barley, apple, alfalfa, pearl millet, Kenya 2015 - 2017 Armenia 2015 - 2017 Kenya potato, fingerm millet,illet, sw rice,eetpo pearltato, v millet,etch sweetpotato, vetch 2015 - 2017 alfalfa, barley, chickpea, grasspea, pea, rye, sorghum, vetch, grasspea Lebanon 2015 - 2017 lentil, oat, pea, rye, vetch, wheat pigeonpea, eggplant, potato, Lebanon alfalfa,Malaysi barley,a chickpea, grasspea, lentil, oat, pea,2015 rye, vetch,- 2017 wheat 2015 - 2017 wheat, oat, carrot, barley, lentil, apple, alfalfa, pearl banana, sorghum, rice Azerbaijan 2015 - 2017 oat, barley, finger millet, pearl millet, millet, pea, rye, sorghum, vetch, grasspea Malaysia pigeonpea, eggplant,sweetpot apotato,to, rice, banana,alfalfa, ca sorghum,rrot, rice 2015 - 2017 Nepal grasspea, apple, eggplant, banana, 2015 - 2017 Brazil rice, sweetpotato, potato, finger millet 2015 - 2017 vetch, pigeonpea, chickpea, oat, barley, fingercowp emillet,a pearl millet, sweetpotato, rice, alfalfa, oat, carrot, barley, grasspea, lentil, alfalfa, wheat, Nepal carrot, grasspea,finge apple,r millet ,eggplant, pearl mille banana,t, eggplant, vetch, pigeonpea, 2015 - 2017 Cyprus 2014 - 2015 Nigeria sorghum, sweetpotato, Bambara 2015 - 2017 faba bean, vetch chickpea, cowpeagroundnut, rice, cowpea wheat, oat, pigeonpea, chickpea, finger millet, capearlrrot, millet,finger m eggplant,illet, barle ysorghum,, sweetpotato, Bambara Costa Rica bean, rice, potato 2016 – 2017 Nigeria Pakistan sweetpotato, grasspea, lentil, apple, 2016 - 2017 2015 - 2017 groundnut, rice,alfa lcowpeafa, rice, pearl millet, rye, wheat, oat, pigeonpea,eggplant, so chickpea,rghum and carrot, vetch finger millet, barley, Chile finger millet, barley, alfalfa, potato 2016 – 2018 Peru potato 2016 - 2018 Pakistan sweetpotato,o grasspea,at, carrot, blentil,arley, apple,grassp ealfalfa,a, lentil ,rice, pearl millet, rye, 2016 - 2017 Portugal alfalfa, gardenpea, faba bean, 2014 - 2016 Ecuador potato, eggplant, lima bean, rice, sweetpotato 2016 - 2018 eggplant, sorghumvetch, aandpple vetch oat, barley, grasspea, lentil, alfalfa, cowpea, eggplant, finger millet, pearl millet, pea, Peru potatoSpain rye, garden pea, bread wheat, faba 2016 - 2017 2016 - 2018 Ethiopia 2016 - 2017 bean sorghum, oats, lentil, vetch oat, carrot, barley,finger mgrasspeaillet, pea,rl lentil, millet, alfalfa,rice, gardenpea, faba bean, Portugal Sudan 2015 – 2017 2014 - 2016 carrot, grasspea, alfalfa, wheat, vetch, oat, barley, vetch, apple sorghum, eggplant, cowpea Georgia 2014 - 2017 finger millet, sweetpotato, sorghum, lentil, apple, pea oat,Uganda barley, grasspea,lentil, rice ,lentil, pearl malfalfa,illet, e grye,gpla gardennt, pea,2015 bread - 2017 wheat, Spain vetch, cowpea 2016 - 2017 faba bean apple, aubergine, banana, cowpea, 2014 - 2017 eggplant, finger millet, pearl millet, sorghum, rice, Vietnam Ghana 2016 - 2017 pigeonpea, rice, sweetpotato cowpea, sweetpotato Sudan finger millet, pearl millet, rice, sorghum, eggplant, cowpea 2015 – 2017 barley, rice, sweetpotato, common bean, potato, finger millet, sweetpotato, sorghum, lentil, rice, pearl millet, Guatemala 2016 - 2017 Uganda 2015 - 2017 eggplant eggplant, vetch, cowpea oat, carrot, barley, grasspea, alfalfa, wheat, vetch, Italy 2013 - 2015 2014 - 2017 pea Vietnam apple, aubergine, banana, cowpea, pigeonpea, rice, sweetpotato

44 Sunflower pre-breeding and evaluation

Drought tolerant pre-bred lines with desirable traits (e.g., large leaves and thick stems) developed in Canada, using CWRs from USDA collection - now being evaluated in Uganda, Argentina, India, Israel, US and France

45 Alfalfa pre-breeding

CWR of alfalfa that have extreme levels of drought and salinity tolerance are being used to develop introgression lines for use by breeders. Partners: Australia, Chile, Kazakstan, Inner Mongolia (China)

46 PigeonpeaCrop Wild Rpreela-tbreedingives – Pigeonpea pre-breeding

Pigeonpea is sixth most important grain legume in tropics and semi-tropics

Climate change affecting yield and susceptibility to pests and diseases

Pre-breeders have crossed a crop wild relative with cultivated pigeonpea to develop a line resistant to three diseases (wilt, sterility mosaic disease and phytophthora) and high yielding

Line will soon be released for national evaluation

47 Outputs: Seeds, Data and Capacity

CWR seed Capacity

Newly collected Capacity on CWR seeds ‘collecting, conserved and conserving and made available using CWR’ built from genebanks in developing countries

Pre-bred lines Data Pre-bred lines Data on made available collected seeds to farmers and and pre-bred breeders lines made through available publicly genebanks online

4848 Role of Botanic Gardens Project is co-managed by the Crop Trust and MSB (RBG Kew) Team at MSB contributes by: • Planning and target setting for collecting • Monitoring and backstopping collecting in partner countries • Capacity building of partners • Processing, conserving and distributing germplasm • Communications Some collecting partners are botanic gardens (e.g. Republic of Georgia)

49 But the work is not over: Global CWR priorities

• We still don’t know how many CWRs are conserved in all corners of the world, due to a lack of data sharing • Collecting in 24 countries (mostly developing), but still important gaps remain • Pre-breeding efforts under the CWR project crucial, but global impact is only possible by linking up with development and seed systems partners (last mile problem)

50 But the work is not over: CWRs in North America

Distributions of CWR, genebanks, and botanic gardens 1. understand and document North America’s useful wild plants 2. collect and conserve their diversity 3. make their diversity accessible for plant breeding, research, and education 4. protect threatened species in their natural habitats 5. raise public awareness of their value and the threats to their persistence

Moreau and Novy, 2018 51 German Genebank for wild ‘useful’ plants (WEL)

• Network of four Botanical Gardens in Germany (Berlin, Karlsruhe, Osnabrück und Regensburg) • Systematic collection of accessions from all across Germany • Decentralized collections, held by each Garden in each region • Key focus is crop wild relatives • 4300 accessions of 263 species • Material available with an SMTA under the International Treaty

52 Two ex situ worlds divided?

Botanic Gardens Crop Genebanks Holdings Mainly wild & ornamental Mainly domesticated Policy CBD ITPGRFA Target setting Global Strategy for Plant Global Plant of Action for Conservation PGRFA Information PlantSearch, Garden Search Genesys, WIEWS

53 5353 Botanic Gardens and Food Security

Though not their main mandate, Botanic Gardens play an important role in conserving the world’s agricultural biodiversity:

Public education to explain why plants matter Conservation: as collection holders, both plants and seeds Conservation planning: source of scientific data e.g. from herbaria

5454 Partnerships for biodiversity

55 Importance of biodiversity recognized in the UN

Proposed Goal 2: EndSDGS hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture 2.5: By 2020 maintain genetic diversity of seeds, cultivated plants, farmed and domesticated animals and their related wild species, including through soundly managed and diversified seed and plant banks at national, regional and international levels, and ensure access to and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge as internationally agreed 57 FOOD FOREVER AIMS TO

RAISE AWARENESS INSPIRE of the importance the global of community to agrobiodiversity achieve UNSDG for humankind 2.5 59 60 FOOD FOREVER

Champions and partner organizations working together towards a common goal 10F oChefs:od Fo rOneever Diverse Dialogu eMissions

M I C H E L SELASSIE NISCHAN ATADIKA

EMCEE

UMBER ERIK AHMAD OBERHOLTZER

17 62

Taste the Future of Food

64 BAMBARATEPARYAMARANTHFINGERARROWROOTBREADFRUITSALTWORTJACKFRUITMORINGACHAYOTECRICKETSSALSIFYFONIODATES OCATEFFGROUNDNUT BEAN MILLET

Media Coverage

71 2019 Experiences

C O S T A R I C A BONN CUSCO

CHICAGO STOCKHOLM LONDON

72 Traveling Exhibition

• Global traveling exhibition about crop diversity & food security (2020 – 2025) • BGCI coordinating role • Botanic gardens, museums, science centres invited to take part • Core designs and toolkit provided • Fabricated locally • Every iteration will be different 73 Traveling exhibition

• Core designs funded by: • The Crop Trust • Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh • Royal Botanic Garden Kew • The Leichtag Foundation • Supported by Botanic Gardens Conservation International • Piloted at Edinburgh International Science Festival, 9-22 April

74 FOOD FOREVER

Together we will do an important job for humankind and give the world a success story VISIT US AT FOOD4EVER.ORG THANK YOU