http://www.croptrust.org/main/ Together with the air we breathe and the water we drink, crop diversity is one of the most fundamentally important resources for human life on earth. en-us Nucleus CMS v3.50 (c) The Global Crop Diversity Trust 2006 http://www.croptrust.org/main//image/croptrust_rss.png http://www.croptrust.org/main/ Subscribe with My Yahoo!Subscribe with NewsGatorSubscribe with My AOLSubscribe with BloglinesSubscribe with NetvibesSubscribe with GoogleSubscribe with Pageflakes http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CropTrust/~3/fd7RsaDnfW4/ (9 November 2009) Many crop varieties have yet to be collected from their natural habitats and are therefore not represented in genebanks. The Trust is launching a competitive grants scheme to fund the collecting of wild relatives of our crops, to fill gaps in international collections and in particular to secure varieties that might carry traits of high potential value for climate change adaptation.
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]]> Mon, 9 Nov 2009 11:44:09 +0100 http://www.croptrust.org/main/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CropTrust/~3/fd7RsaDnfW4/ (5 November 2009) This year Stokes Seeds has been running a scheme through which customers are invited to make donations to the Trust, which are in turn matched by the company. This year the scheme raised $2,652, and we are extremely grateful to Stokes Seeds and their customers. We are also delighted that Stokes Seeds has decided to run this generous programme again next year.
Visit the Stokes Seeds website]]> Thu, 5 Nov 2009 13:42:04 +0100 http://www.croptrust.org/main/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CropTrust/~3/fd7RsaDnfW4/ (22 October 2009) Much crop diversity remains untapped, mainly because it has yet to be adequately characterized and evaluated. To address this the Trust has set up a competitive grants scheme, to enable breeders and scientists to screen crop diversity collections for traits important to climate change adaptation. The Trust is now inviting applications for the third round of this Award Scheme.
For further details about how to apply, visit the evaluation page. ]]> Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:57:40 +0200 http://www.croptrust.org/main/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CropTrust/~3/fd7RsaDnfW4/ (22 October 2009) The Trust has announced a vacancy in its senior management team for a Director of Operations.
For further information, see our employment page.]]> Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:56:03 +0200 http://www.croptrust.org/main/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CropTrust/~3/fd7RsaDnfW4/ (21 October 2009) The Royal Society, the UK's national academy of science, is calling for a £2 billion "Grand Challenge" research programme on global food security, emphasising the urgency of increasing agricultural yields worldwide. One of the proven, high impact strategies cited in the report is breeding new varieties of crops, but this is dependent on the conservation of crop diversity – proof yet again of the need to prioritise the conservation of crop diversity in the fight to achieve food security and adapt to climate change.
Read more]]> Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:07:26 +0200 http://www.croptrust.org/main/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CropTrust/~3/fd7RsaDnfW4/ (20 October 2009) Recientemente se le presentó al Fondo un nuevo y fascinante libro de cocina de Ecuador, Gastronomia ancestral andina e intercultural de Cotacachi, mostrando una diversidad de la variedad de cultivos nativos de la región. Las recetas han sido recolectadas de las mujeres indígenas de los Andes, quienes han conservado esta diversidad a través de su uso en los platos tradicionales que se muestran en el libro. El libro fue patrocinado por la Unión de Organizaciones campesinas e Indigenas de Cotacachi, Instituto Nacional Autónomo de Investigaciones Agropecuarias, Bioversity International y el Departamento de Agricultura de los Estados Unidos.]]> Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:06:07 +0200 http://www.croptrust.org/main/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CropTrust/~3/fd7RsaDnfW4/ (16 October 2009) The Trust's 'Enhancing the Value of Crop Diversity' awards were heavily oversubscribed. 16 applications have now been selected, to evaluate and characterize collections of crop diversity for traits of particular importance to poor farmers, as well as for climate change adaptation. Successful projects include work on cassava in Malawi and Mozambique, on rice in Burkina Faso, lentil in Yemen and sweet potato in Papua New Guinea. A third and final call for proposals under this scheme will be announced here shortly.
Read more about the successful projects ]]> Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:19:43 +0200 http://www.croptrust.org/main/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CropTrust/~3/fd7RsaDnfW4/ (15 October 2009) Congratulations to Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank on having collected 10% of the world's wild seed plants. The Trust’s mandate is very different – we are concerned with the relatively few species of plants on which we rely for food, ensuring that the incredible diversity found within these crops is safe, properly conserved and available for use by breeders. Kew celebrated its milestone by placing in storage seeds of a pink banana, a wild crop relative also stored in banana genebanks for use in breeding programmes - evidence of our complementary approach.
Read more]]> Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:19:21 +0200 http://www.croptrust.org/main/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CropTrust/~3/fd7RsaDnfW4/ (13 October 2009) Experts from around the world are meeting in Rome this week, to examine the government policies required to ensure that the world population is fed when it nears its peak of nearly 9.2 billion people in the middle of this century. Cary Fowler, the Trust’s Executive Director, pointed out that the most significant challenge to feeding the world is adapting our crops to climate change, yet agriculture is almost absent from the forthcoming climate change conference in Copenhagen just two months away.
Read more about the forum]]> Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:38:01 +0200 http://www.croptrust.org/main/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CropTrust/~3/fd7RsaDnfW4/ (12 October 2009) The Ebbe Nielsen Prize for innovative bioinformatics research has been awarded to CIAT & Bioversity International scientist Andy Jarvis. Jarvis, whose work is co-funded by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, has produced groundbreaking studies on the importance of conserving so-called “crop wild relatives”, the naturally-occurring relatives of domesticated crops, and has used geographic modeling to predict the impact of climate change on agriculture. The studies resulted in some shocking predictions of what climate change will do to these wild species, many of which have valuable genetic traits that could be used to improve domesticated crops and enhance global food production.
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