Last summer I grew three varieties of corn in my tiny garden. I knew from the start that my harvest, if any, would be meagre. The plants would be hindered by poor soils, assertive pigeons and, worst of all, my pathetic knowledge of farming. Luckily it wasn’t so much the product I was interested in, as the process. I was interested in the idea of crop diversity – and in what it means to conserve it.
Today hundreds of organisations around the world, from community non-profits to international research agencies, strive to conserve crop diversity. Many are worried about a future in which today’s industrial monocrops wither in the face of climate change, drought and emerging diseases, forcing farmers and plant breeders to look for crops with traits suited for a changing planet.
