Preserving a Precious Resource: Global Food Security Through Crop Diversity

Crop diversity is essential to global food security. When agriculture relies on only a few species and varieties, it exposes the crops needed to feed the world to risks, including pests, diseases, and extreme weather events such as heatwaves, floods and droughts. Safeguarding this diversity is the mission of the Crop Trust. And as climate shifts multiply these risks, the organization’s work is becoming increasingly important.  

Established in 2004 and headquartered in Bonn, Germany, the Crop Trust supports partners to conserve crop diversity and make it available to researchers, plant breeders, and farmers to build the resilient agriculture and secure food supplies needed to feed the world. To do this, the Crop Trust provides long-term funding to the world’s key international seed banks—also known as gene banks. It also supports the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which was established in 2008 and is operated by the Norwegian government. Deep under a permafrost mountain, the Seed Vault provides a long-term back-up repository for the world’s crop diversity. It is food security for the future of humanity. 

A Growing Role for Gene Banks 

It’s often said that humans have historically used around 6,000 different plant species for food, but today, most of our calories come from just six crops. That’s a stark shift, but it tells only part of the story. 

The loss runs even deeper. Within those six crops – and hundreds of others we still rely on to a much lesser extent – there were thousands of different varieties, each adapted to local climates, soils, tastes, and traditions. Over generations, farmers bred and selected plants for drought resistance, flavor, disease tolerance, or ritual use. That’s genetic diversity, and it’s the foundation of plant breeding, crop improvement and agricultural resilience. 

Today, much of that rich diversity – both of species and varieties – has disappeared. Varieties that farmers took centuries to develop are gone. Some crops are no longer cultivated as widely and have even disappeared in some places. And that means our food system is more vulnerable. 

This is an insurance policy for agriculture, and it’s like any insurance policy—you never want to have to use it, but it’s great to have it there if you need it.

Driving this decline in diversity has been the industrialization of agriculture, leading farmers to rely on fewer and fewer varieties, explains Dr. Stefan Schmitz, the Crop Trust’s Executive Director. “There is less crop diversity in farmers’ fields,” he says. “And the less diversity there is in the field, the more you need gene banks to bring in new diversity, through the breeding process. Only by doing that can you maintain the performance, yield, and quality of seeds over time and make them adaptable to ever-changing situations.” 

This is why the support for the Crop Trust is critical. However, its role goes beyond funding for seed banks. The organization also fosters collaboration, enabling the world’s gene banks to share resources and learn from each other. 

A Life Dedicated to Crop Diversity 

In the 1990s, his concern for food security and its importance to humanity led Dr. Fowler to the FAO, where he led a team producing the first assessment of the state of the world’s plant genetic resources. His team also drafted and negotiated the first FAO Global Plan of Action for the Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which was formally adopted by 150 countries in 1996. 

From 2005 to 2012, he was the Crop Trust’s first full-time Executive Director. Joining an organization that was then not well known and only had a handful of staff, he remembers feeling daunted by the task ahead. “The goal was to raise a significant endowment, which would make available funds every year to conserve diversity in perpetuity,” he recalls.   

Despite his early trepidation, this and other roles have enabled him to help shape global approaches to crop diversity conservation. And he is best known for spearheading the creation of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a facility where gene banks can deposit duplicates of their seed samples free of charge.  

At the time, few people appreciated the importance of having such a back-up system. “People told me it couldn’t possibly have been as important as I made out,” recalls Dr. Fowler. But today, Svalbard is known as the ultimate repository for the world’s crop diversity.  

An Insurance Policy for the World 

Gene banks are not simply there for preservation or storage, says Dr. Schmitz. To fulfil their purpose, they must be used as research and development resources. “It’s important to make them innovation hubs and the starting point for plant research and breeding,” he says.  

Dr. Fowler agrees. “These collections are critical to crop breeding efforts,” he says. For this reason, he donated $200,000—part of his $250,000 share of the 2024 World Food Prize (Dr. Geoffrey Hawtin was the other awardee)—to the Crop Trust. 

The organization received the gift through its American Friends Fund hosted at Myriad USA, a U.S. public charity which provides solutions for foreign nonprofits seeking to receive tax-deductible gifts from supporters in the United States, without the cost of establishing their own legal structure.  

Dr. Fowler decided to allocate part of the funds to the Crop Trust. “Because the seed collections the Crop Trust supports are alive, there simply can’t be a gap in their maintenance or the funding for their preservation. Not without serious consequences,” he says. “It’s not easy to raise money for this purpose,” he adds. “My gift was also meant to encourage the staff at the Crop Trust and hopefully to motivate potential donors.” 

Conservation of crop diversity is extremely underfunded. We need to make sure crop diversity is preserved before it’s lost forever—we need to protect this natural treasure which feeds us.

For Dr. Schmitz, the gift provides an important new source of funding. “This is a great encouragement to our efforts to make sure we have an increased capability to make long-term grants to gene banks,” he says. 

Supporting the Future of Crop Science 

The balance of Dr. Fowler’s gift will establish a scholarship program for young African scientists working with genetic resources. He and the Crop Trust came up with this idea together, driven by a desire to support the next generation of crop diversity researchers. 

“Opportunities abound both with young agricultural scientists and with the highly nutritious African crops they are researching,” explains Dr. Fowler. “Neither has reached their potential—but it has never been more important for them to do so. I am so fortunate to have the privilege of supporting these people and plants.” 

Whether through its endowment or programs like the scholarship, Dr. Fowler sees the ultimate mission of the Crop Trust as enabling gene bank resources to be used to breed new crop varieties, helping the world’s farmers and securing the future of global nutrition. “The Crop Trust exists to ensure the conservation of crop diversity in perpetuity,” he says.