FAO has a 6-page leaflet out on “Seed systems – Twenty things you need to know.” It’s well-written and comprehensive. These are the 20 things, in case you were wondering:
- What is a seed?
- What makes some seeds better than others?
- What is seed quality assurance?
- What does it mean when seeds are “certified”?
- What are “quality declared seeds”?
- What work does FAO do on seeds?
- What do seed policies aim to do?
- What is seed security, and why is it important?
- What does FAO do to help farmers after a disaster?
- Why not just give food instead of seeds?
- How do seeds help farmers recover after disasters?
- Where does FAO get the seeds it gives to farmers?
- How does FAO decide what kind of seed help to provide?
- How do emergency seed responses help farmers become more resilient to future disasters?
- What’s the difference between hybrid crop varieties and other types of varieties?
- Are older, farmers’ varieties better than newer ones?
- What would happen if we lost a crop variety?
- How do farmers learn about new crop varieties?
- How are harsh environmental conditions affecting crop varieties?
- Does FAO tell farmers which crop varieties to use?
Comprehensive, as I say. Even genebanks get a shout-out:
Crop variety loss also reduces the diversity of our cropping systems, thus making them more vulnerable to stresses. That’s why conservation is so important. By safeguarding inter- and intra-specific diversity of crops in genebanks and through on-farm management of diversity varieties are prevented from disappearing forever, their useful traits are documented, and this diversity remains available for the current and future generations. Conserved varieties are an essential resource for plant breeders, as they can be sources of important traits, such as stress resistance or nutritional quality, to be incorporated into new crop varieties.
Though I would personally have maybe added a nod to the potential direct role of genebanks in seed systems. Feeding breeding pipelines is surely not the only way genebanks can make an impact, especially for so-called neglected and underutilized crops — or opportunity crops as we should now call them I guess.
