Prince Charles Urges Diversity in the Crop World
Author: Umberto Bacchi | Date Published: June 7, 2017
Britain’s Prince Charles called on Wednesday for greater diversity in crop planting to feed a growing population in the face of global warming.
Access to a large pool of genetic information held by different plant varieties is key for scientists, who are racing to find crops capable of tolerating increasingly high temperatures, water shortages and dry conditions.
Three quarters of the world’s plant genetic diversity has been lost since the 1900s, as farmers shift from local varieties to genetically uniform, high-yielding crop breeds, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Speaking in a video message in support of an international lobby group, Food Forever, Charles said the trend to grow fewer varieties was “profoundly alarming”.