8th INTERNATIONAL WHEAT CONFERENCE

CoNSeRVINg CRoP dIVeRSITy IN The 21 ST CeNTuRy
Cary Fowler
Global Diversity Trust, Italy
E-mail: cary.fowler@croptrust.org
While policy makers speak of the necessity for increasing agricultural production, the
practical obstacles to doing so are quickly increasing. Any credible effort to achieve global
food security will require the conservation and use of crop diversity. This, in turn, will
require cooperation and vision amongst countries and institutions – and perhaps even
a very different model for genetic resources conservation and use from the one promulgated
in the 1970s.
Any sustainable system for conserving crop diversity will have to be rational, efficient and
effective. It will not only have to work for wheat, but for all the other crops collectively.
What would such a system look like? How would it work? Who would benefit? Who
might be disadvantaged? These are the questions the “wheat community” and the broader
“genetic resources community” will need to explore in order to help agriculture and its
crops get ready for the challenges of climate change, as well as land, water, energy and
nutrient constraints.
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