363-1 Interdependence Among Countries in Crop Genetic Resources Provisioning National Food Supplies and Production Systems.

See more from this Division: C08 Plant Genetic Resources
See more from this Session: Plant Genetic Resources: I

Wednesday, November 18, 2015: 10:05 AM
Minneapolis Convention Center, 103 F

Colin K. Khoury1, Harold A. Achicanoy2, Anne Bjorkman3, Carlos Navarro-Racines4, Luigi Guarino5, Ximena Flores-Palacios6, Jan M. M. Engels7, John Wiersema8, Hannes Dempewolf5, Julian Ramirez Villegas9, Nora P. Castañeda-Álvarez9, Cary Fowler5, Andy Jarvis10, Loren Rieseberg11 and Paul C. Struik12, (1)CIAT - Intl Center for Tropical Agriculture, Cali, Colombia
(2)International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), 763537, Colombia
(3)German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research, Leipzig, BC, Germany
(4)International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Cali, Colombia
(5)Global Crop Diversity Trust, Bonn, Germany
(6)Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand
(7)Bioversity International, Maccarese, Italy
(8)National Germplasm Research Laboratory, United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Beltsville, MD
(9)CIAT- Intl Center for Tropical Agriculture, Cali, Colombia
(10)CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), Cali, Colombia
(11)University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
(12)Wageningen University & Research Centre, Utrecht, Netherlands
Abstract:
The crops that feed the world originated in specific geographic regions across the planet. Genetic diversity within these crops and their wild relatives is considered to be historically particularly rich within these regions. These genetic resources are regularly employed in crop improvement: thus, preventing erosion of remnant genetic diversity occurring in situ, and ensuring the long-term access to this diversity conserved in genebanks ex situ, are critical to continued increases in agricultural productivity. The geopolitical significance of the geography of crop genetic diversity has not been quantified. Here we report on an assessment of the degree to which the food supplies and production systems of countries worldwide are comprised of crops from each of these regions of diversity. We examine dependence of countries upon crops from regions of diversity other than their own (“foreign crops”), and determine change in this dependence over the past 50 years. Crop diversity hotspots occur across the tropics and subtropics, extending into temperate regions in both hemispheres. National food systems are thoroughly interconnected worldwide in regard to the geographic origins of crop diversity. Countries are highly dependent on foreign crops in their food supplies (68.7% as a global mean across food variables) and in their national production systems (69.3%). This reliance is evident even in countries located in regions of high indigenous crop diversity and has increased significantly over the past half century, bolstering the importance of effective national and international policies to promote genetic resource conservation and exchange.

See more from this Division: C08 Plant Genetic Resources
See more from this Session: Plant Genetic Resources: I

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