The current trajectory for crop yields is insufficient to nourish the world’s population by 20501. Greater and more consistent crop production must be achieved against a backdrop of climatic stress that limits yields, owing to shifts in pests and pathogens, precipitation, heat-waves and other weather extremes. Here we consider the potential of plant sciences to address post-Green Revolution challenges in agriculture and explore emerging strategies for enhancing sustainable crop production and resilience in a changing climate. Accelerated crop improvement must leverage naturally evolved traits and transformative engineering driven by mechanistic understanding, to yield the resilient production systems that are needed to ensure future harvests. Genetic strategies for improving the yield and sustainability of agricultural crops, and the resilience of crops in the face of biotic and abiotic stresses contingent on projected climate change, are evaluated.

/pdf/genetic-strategies-for-improving-crop-yields-1wizsp77b6.pdf

Genetic strategies for improving crop yields

The United Nations declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses (grain legumes) under the banner ‘nutritious seeds for a sustainable future’. A second green revolution is required to ensure food and nutritional security in the face of global climate change. Grain legumes provide an unparalleled solution to this problem because of their inherent capacity for symbiotic atmospheric nitrogen fixation, which provides economically sustainable advantages for farming. In addition, a legume-rich diet has health benefits for humans and livestock alike. However, grain legumes form only a minor part of most current human diets, and legume crops are greatly under-used. Food security and soil fertility could be significantly improved by greater grain legume usage and increased improvement of a range of grain legumes. The current lack of coordinated focus on grain legumes has compromised human health, nutritional security and sustainable food production.

/pdf/neglecting-legumes-has-compromised-human-health-and-2vzbf3diuf.pdf

Neglecting legumes has compromised human health and sustainable food production

The wild relatives of domesticated crops possess genetic diversity useful for developing more productive, nutritious and resilient crop varieties. However, their conservation status and availability for utilization are a concern, and have not been quantified globally. Here, we model the global distribution of 1,076 taxa related to 81 crops, using occurrence information collected from biodiversity, herbarium and gene bank databases. We compare the potential geographic and ecological diversity encompassed in these distributions with that currently accessible in gene banks, as a means to estimate the comprehensiveness of the conservation of genetic diversity. Our results indicate that the diversity of crop wild relatives is poorly represented in gene banks. For 313 (29.1% of total) taxa associated with 63 crops, no germplasm accessions exist, and a further 257 (23.9%) are represented by fewer than ten accessions. Over 70% of taxa are identified as high priority for further collecting in order to improve their representation in gene banks, and over 95% are insufficiently represented in regard to the full range of geographic and ecological variation in their native distributions. The most critical collecting gaps occur in the Mediterranean and the Near East, western and southern Europe, Southeast and East Asia, and South America. We conclude that a systematic effort is needed to improve the conservation and availability of crop wild relatives for use in plant breeding.

Global conservation priorities for crop wild relatives

Agriculture is under pressure to produce greater quantities of food, feed and biofuel on limited land resources. Current over-reliance on a handful of major staple crops has inherent agronomic, ecological, nutritional and economic risks and is probably unsustainable in the long run. Wider use of today’s underutilized minor crops provides more options to build temporal and spatial heterogeneity into uniform cropping systems and will enhance resilience to both biotic and abiotic stress. Many traditional vegetables and underutilized legume crops are an essential source of vitamins, micronutrients and protein and, thus, a valuable component to attain nutritional security. Vegetables in general are of considerable commercial value and therefore an important source of household income. Significant research, breeding and development efforts are needed for a range of promising crops to convert existing local landraces into competitive varieties with wide adaptation and promising commercial potential. Access to genetic diversity of these selected crops is a pre-condition for success. Three underutilized minor crops—amaranth, drumstick tree, and mungbean—are highlighted and briefly described. All three crops are well-represented in AVRDC’s genebank with substantial inter- and intra-specific genetic diversity, and already have demonstrated their potential for wider adoption and commercial exploitation.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/6/1/319/pdf

Potential of Underutilized Traditional Vegetables and Legume Crops to Contribute to Food and Nutritional Security, Income and More Sustainable Production Systems

The main objective of the“Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change” project is to collect and protect the genetic diversity of a portfolio of plants with the characteristics required for adapting the world's most important food crops to climate change. The initiative also aims to make available this diversity in a form that plant breeders can readily use to produce varieties adapted to the new climatic conditions that farmers, particularly in the developing world, are already encountering. Such adaptation is a key component of securing the world's future food production. This paper serves to inform interested researchers of this important initiative and encourage collaboration under its umbrella.

Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change: A Global Initiative to Collect, Conserve, and Use Crop Wild Relatives

This article discusses the unequal distribution of food within and among countries of the world poverty as the main cause of hunger the patterns of population growth and future prospects. The evidence reveals the potential for reaching limits of agricultural expansion. Widespread environmental destruction suggests that agricultural lands are declining. Current production patterns may not be sustainable. "Population growth is the single largest determinant of future needs." Farmers of the worlds poorest regions must produce food to meet the needs of a doubled population by 2050. The 1996 World Food Summit urged that agricultural policies emphasize environmentally sustainable production methods and a wider variety of crops that would include sorghum and millet. In the early 1990s 40% of Africas population was food-energy deficient. Africa has some of the highest population growth rates. Fertility stands at about 6 children/woman. Even with reduced fertility the African population is expected to double to 22% of world population by 2050. The East Asian population which is dominated by China is expected to reach 2.2 billion by 2050. South Asia includes some of the poorest and most densely populated countries; its population is expected to reach 2.2-3.3 billion by 2050. 43% of the malnourished population during 1990-92 lived in sub-Saharan Africa 22% lived in South Asia 16% lived in East and Southeast Asia 15% lived in Latin America and the Caribbean and 12% lived in the Near East and North Africa. The proportions of underweight children included 58% in South Asia 30% in sub-Saharan Africa 25% in the Near East and North Africa 24% in East and Southeast Asia and 12% in Latin America and the Caribbean. If everyone adopted a vegetarian diet and no food were wasted there would be enough food to feed 10 billion people. Malnourishment has the harshest effects on children rural populations the growing urban poor and victims of natural disasters.

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