Crop Science special issue: Adapting agriculture to climate change: A walk on the wild side

Abstract

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Farmers’ Rights and Digital Sequence Information: Crisis or Opportunity to Reclaim Stewardship Over Agrobiodiversity?

“…Article 9.2a of the ITPGRFA affirms the importance of this traditional agricultural knowledge and states that parties shall take measures to protect traditional knowledge relevant to PGRFA. While about 90–95% of all genetic resources used today in plant breeding are elite, modern varieties, derived from private genebanks, with only the remaining 5–10% representing landraces or wild relatives, there is growing interest and investment in utilizing crop wild relatives and farmer varieties ( Smolders, 2005 ; Baldermann et al, 2016 ; Dempewolf et al, 2017 ; Aberkane et al, 2019 ; Kilian et al, 2020 ; Singh et al, 2020 ). This attention is due in part to the fact that they contain important genes for stress resistance, adaptability, and improved productivity, and are therefore of interest in the context of climate change, population growth, shrinking areas of arable land and the rapid erosion of agrobiodiversity ( Dempewolf et al, 2017 ; Aberkane et al, 2019 ; Kilian et al, 2020 ).…”

“…While about 90–95% of all genetic resources used today in plant breeding are elite, modern varieties, derived from private genebanks, with only the remaining 5–10% representing landraces or wild relatives, there is growing interest and investment in utilizing crop wild relatives and farmer varieties ( Smolders, 2005 ; Baldermann et al, 2016 ; Dempewolf et al, 2017 ; Aberkane et al, 2019 ; Kilian et al, 2020 ; Singh et al, 2020 ). This attention is due in part to the fact that they contain important genes for stress resistance, adaptability, and improved productivity, and are therefore of interest in the context of climate change, population growth, shrinking areas of arable land and the rapid erosion of agrobiodiversity ( Dempewolf et al, 2017 ; Aberkane et al, 2019 ; Kilian et al, 2020 ). Changes in consumer demand are also transforming the interest in crop wild relatives and underutilized species, with consumer interest in novel and ‘super’, or highly nutritious foods growing in recent decades ( Wynberg, 2013 ).…”

Prioritizing Achievable Goals for Food Security in the Developing World

“…Wild relatives and landraces have been used in a limited way in scientific breeding over the past 100 years or more, but there is a new and growing appreciation that they often contain traits, such as resistance and tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses, that are highly desirable in response to climate change. New technologies are making it easier to identify and incorporate these traits into advanced varieties, and the value of wild relatives and landraces should be experimented with in many more crops (Kilian et al, 2021). Increasing photosynthetic efficiency and conferring nitrogen-fixing ability on cereals are two approaches that have so far failed to deliver on their initial promises, but new technologies such as highthroughput phenotyping of wild relatives and landraces may change that record (Langridge, 2018)…”

Genetic diversity, distribution and domestication history of the neglected GGAtAtgenepool of wheat

“…This is exacerbated by the demand for high crop productivity under climate change. Crop wild relatives (CWR) represent a large pool of beneficial allelic variation and are urgently required to improve the elite genepools (Dempewolf et al 2017;Kilian et al 2021). Bread wheat and durum wheat are the staple crops for about 40% of the world's population.…”