Nairobi, Kenya — Crop diversity presents an opportunity to address some of the most pressing issues Africa faces today, such as climate impacts, biodiversity loss, and land degradation.
Should the climate crisis persist on its current course, the continent of Africa will face devastating food security issues. The planet is warming at an alarming rate and experts predict significant warming beyond the targets set by the Paris Agreement. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that temperatures have already increased by 1.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels due to greenhouse gas emissions.
"The challenges we face today - climate change adaptation, biodiversity preservation, mitigation of climate impacts, and ensuring livelihoods and nutrition - are all reasons we must prioritize crop diversity," said Falalou Hamidou, the Senior Scientist and Regional Gene Bank and Country Representative at ICRISAT.
The diversity of crops can boost yields and enhance nutrition, for instance, increasing the efficiency of our agricultural resources," according to Hamidou. "If we experience genetic loss or diversity loss, it directly impacts our ability to manage resilient agriculture, especially in the face of adverse environmental conditions and fluctuating weather patterns."
"Why is crop diversity so important for you and me?" said Hamidou.
"Our survival relies heavily on it. When we are sick, we turn to medicines, many of which are derived from plants. When we're hungry, we seek food, which comes from diverse crops. Even the materials for our clothes and shoes come from this diversity."
"But considering the importance of crop diversity for humans what we observe today according to many reports and studies we have approximately 75% of crop diversity that has been lost. It should be an alarm for us," he said.
A third of today's crop will disappear by 2050.
According to a study by the Center for Global Development, African countries will suffer significant economic losses if global warming is not limited to 2°C. Should the existing trajectory of climate change persist, Africa's agriculture will suffer 2.9% and 18% reductions in crop production, in the years 2030 and 2050 respectively. Furthermore, it has been estimated that extreme hunger may affect at least 200 million people by 2050 as a result of agricultural losses and economic challenges resulting from climate change.
"This isn't the time to panic, but rather to stay informed and take proactive steps to prevent further loss, said Hamidou.
Hamidou said that fragile food systems are collapsing and in some regions, traditional dishes that were common just 20 years ago, can no longer be made because the crops used to prepare them have disappeared. He pointed to deforestation, bushland destruction, and overexploitation of resources in Africa as key drivers of genetic erosion, as well as overgrazing and conflicts further threatening crop survival. "By 2050, many crops will no longer be able to grow in their original areas. Agricultural productivity could drop by 50% in many regions, and global food loss will rise throughout the supply chain, from farming and post-harvest handling to processing and distribution," he said.
"Studies indicate that 80% of research found evidence of diversity loss. In the U.S., 90% of vegetable varieties have gone extinct since 1903. Crops that were once domesticated or cultivated in certain regions can no longer be found there - or anywhere else," he said.
"So, with all these alarming facts, what can we do?" he asked.
According to the Crop Trust, conserving the vast diversity within and between crops is the only way to ensure farmers and plant breeders have the raw material needed to adapt to future challenges. Preserving biodiversity is a challenge we all must tackle, because we need food to sustain a growing population, especially as we face the impact of climate change in Sub-Saharan Africa.
More than just storage
"For us, the slogan is kind of 'gene banks are not museums," said Anna Backhaus, a pre-breeder at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). The critical role of gene banks goes beyond merely preserving biodiversity."
"It is great that gene banks conserve nature that we're losing, but it's the use of them that created them. The most important part of making gene banks usable is data availability and sharing. With new technologies in computational sciences and the biotechnology sector, gene banks are opening up more and more," she said.
"Gene banks must be user-friendly, and platforms like Genesys, supported by the Crop Trust, aim to make biodiversity accessible, much like an "Amazon" for landraces," she said. She compared it to an Amazon-like service for crop biodiversity, where users can search for specific traits, such as drought resistance, and receive a curated list of landraces from relevant environments. This, she said, allows scientists at ICARDA to efficiently utilize vast collections of genetic material by focusing on those most likely to succeed in their local conditions.
Landrace refers to a local variety of a plant or animal that has developed over time in order to adapt to a particular environment.
Henry Ojulong, a breeder and senior scientist in charge of breeding at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) said that farmers play a key role in this process, as their preferences, such as grain color or taste, are critical to the success of new varieties.
He said that farmers, often the best breeders, provide valuable insights, and breeders rely on gene banks to retrieve lost genetic traits. "The best breeder is the farmer himself, and while some good traits have been lost in the process, we need to bring them back," he said.
"Currently, the diversity we get the most comes from farmer-preferred material, which is in the gene bank. But sometimes, that diversity can be limited. Then we need to go to the wild relatives," Ojulong said, adding, "Of course, the downside of wild relatives is that they often come with a lot of challenges, which is why pre-breeders have to work with them for four or five years before handing them to the breeder."
"Gene banks, pre-breeders, breeders, farmers, and consumers all need to collaborate because diversity is our best resource," said Ojulong.
Are local genebanks doing enough?
"I don't think so. They are not doing enough," said Desterio Nyamongo, the Director of the Genetic Resources Research Institute at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (GeRRI)." "The idea to have them established is on the recognition that diversity was disappearing from the farming systems."
He argued that crop improvement efforts aimed at feeding a growing population have also played a role in diminishing diversity. He said that the introduction of high-yielding varieties caused the farmers to neglect their native traditional landraces which they considered less productive. Nyamongo also said that during droughts, these landraces became scarce, exacerbating food shortages. He argued that these traditional varieties are assets that assist in breeding better and more improved crop varieties.
"But now, with climate change, other challenges have come in," he said. "Farmers are now starting to identify and select varieties that meet their specific needs and preferences."
To enhance the effectiveness of gene banks in conservation and usage, several measures are necessary.
"One important thing that needs to happen is to start adding the potential of what they are conserving," said Nyamongo, "the biodiversity that they are conserving. For several of the accessions that we are conserving in gene banks, we don't know their utilization potential in terms of responding to the challenges, either drought, resistance to pests and diseases, in terms of yield, all challenges.
The potential uses of the materials we are preserving remain unclear.
"With regards to characterization and evaluation of the conserved materials, we're well on our way to identifying what we have available that could help us solve the challenges of linking gene banks to farmers through community seed banks," Nyamongo said.
"In Sub-Saharan Africa, there are two primary seed systems: the formal and the informal. The formal seed system is well-established, while the informal system, which dominates about 80% of seed supply in countries like Kenya, lacks quality control and regulation," he said.
Nyamongo said that farmers typically exchange seeds among themselves without considering their quality. "In the formal system, early-generation seeds are maintained for the production of commercial seeds, ensuring farmers receive quality seeds," he said. "Meanwhile, in the informal seed system, which is supported by grassroots organizations and can be viewed as a farm management approach, gene banks are beginning to take on the role of maintaining early-generation seeds, which is crucial for enhancing the quality within this system."
Preserving seeds, preserving communities
Wambui Wakahiu, the Program Officer at Seed Savers Network in Kenya, said that the Seed Savers Network is a national grassroots organization that deals with the conservation of agrobiodiversity by strengthening community seed systems. They aim to facilitate seed access for village farmers, enabling them to share and exchange seeds.
"Our organization works with smallholder farmers. So far we have about 86,000 farmers who are in the network. That translates to about 405,000 beneficiaries across the network," said Wakahiu.
"In terms of conservation, we capacity build the farmers on how they can store their own seeds, even without the facilities like the gin baths. The farmers can use traditional preservation methods that they have, which this indigenous knowledge works perfectly for the farmers, allowing them to store at their community seed banks without having to rely on electricity and cold storage facilities," said Wakahiu.
The Seed Savers Network provides a platform for the farmers to exchange and share their diversity, we do this through seed fairs. Seed fairs or seed festivals are events that they organize, and farmers come together from different communities. They also leverage digital or emerging trends like the Seed Exchange Kenya website. "This is an online platform where farmers can display the seeds, the pictures of the seeds that they have, and they can be able to exchange from whichever location that they are coming from," she said.
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After local genebanks have collected and preserved diverse seed varieties, these seeds are ultimately transported to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a secure facility designed to safeguard the world's agricultural biodiversity against various threats. The vault is a revolutionary backup facility carved into the side of an Arctic mountain.
Inside the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, you'll find the world's largest collection of crop diversity, millions of seeds from the plants that feed humanity.
Often referred to as "the most important room in the world," the Svalbard Global Seed Vault holds the key to our future.
The seed vault is nicknamed the 'Doomsday Vault.' It was established in 2008 and currently safeguards 1.25 million seed samples from countries across the globe. The structure, predominantly made of concrete and integrated into the mountainside, safeguards more than 6,000 different types of crops and culturally significant plants by ensuring their genetic preservation. Each year, genebanks are invited to deposit copies of their seed collections for safekeeping, ensuring that even in the face of disasters - be they natural, man-made, or otherwise - the genetic diversity of our crops remains preserved.
This fortress of biodiversity would house seeds capable of breeding new crops if existing seed banks fell victim to wars, insufficient funding, natural disasters, climate change, or other calamities. That's why they store duplicate copies of their crop collections here, as insurance against worst-case scenarios.
The Seed Vault consists of three seed chambers, with each chamber having the capacity to store almost 3,000 seedboxes. These seeds are stored at -18 degrees Celsius to ensure their continued viability, even if the electricity fails. In the event of a cooling system failure, the permafrost surrounding the vault provides a natural backup.
"To ensure stable temperatures way below zero, the whole Seed Vault is artificially cooled," according to Crop Trust. "Cooling systems generate condensation of air moisture, and this water ends up as ice in the red buckets you can spot in several places within the Seed Vault. These buckets are emptied manually once a week. But even in the event of the mechanical cooling system failing and rising external air temperatures due to climate change, the seed chambers at the bottom of the Seed Vault will remain naturally frozen."
The Seed Vault is a collaboration between the Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen), and the Crop Trust.
