Source: CGIAR Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers

This month saw the 10th anniversary of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.

Plant genetic resources are important as they are the raw materials needed by farmers, scientists, and breeders to help achieve food security in the face of climate change, land and water scarcity and an increasing population. As no single country has all the genetic diversity it needs and is dependent on others, this has created a need for a global pool of agricultural biodiversity that we can all share.

Since its adoption, the Treaty has been ratified by 127 countries, and includes at least 1.5 million plant samples of 64 crops and forages which FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf described as: “the basis for more than 80 percent of the world’s food derived from plants and possibly our most important tool for adapting agriculture to climate change in the years to come.”

The above text was extracted from a Bioversity International blog post, “Marking 10 years of the International Treaty” Please visit the original article for more details, or the International Treaty website.

Photo credit: FAO Plant Treaty album.