On the “Conservation Gaps” page of this website we have published the summary results of our gap analyses for the crop wild relatives of 29 important food and forage crops, including global staples such as rice, wheat, potato, and banana, as well as regionally critical crops such as pigeonpea, lentil, sunflower, and sweet potato.

In our research, we investigated the native distributions of 455 CWR species, and compared these geographic areas to the locations where these species have already been collected and conserved in genebanks. Those areas not already represented in genebanks represent gaps in collections and therefore potential limitations on the genetic diversity available to crop scientists and therefore to farmers.

Given the potential value of crop wild relatives to breeding for climate change adaptation, our finding that more than half of the 455 assessed species are critically lacking in their conservation in genebanks gives further urgency to collecting efforts. If not collected, many of these species will be negatively affected by habitat destruction, urbanization, invasive species, the industrialization of agriculture, and/or climate change itself, leaving fewer resources available to crop researchers in the future.

The results were recently reported on in Nature News and indicate that collecting for genetic resources conservation is still an urgent concern across the globe. Jane Toll, Project Manager at the Global Crop Diversity Trust, adds, “This study has thrown up some surprises. Crop wild relatives in some areas in Australia, Europe and the USA need to be collected just as much as those in regions of Africa, Asia and South America.” This is an important finding, highlighting the important role that the wild plant resources in industrialized countries have to contribute to food security worldwide.

The results will be explorable via an interactive map coming soon. They will be used by national agricultural institutes and interested conservation groups in collaboration with international organizations to inform collecting efforts in the years to come.