by David Gutierrez staff writer January 29, 2011 from NaturalNews Website
Global food security may be in peril unless
immediate measures are taken to stem the dramatic loss of genetic diversity
among food crops and their wild relatives, according to a report by
the
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
In the face of a changing climate, the ability to develop crops that can resist drought, heat, salinity, disease and pests will only become more important. Yet according to the report, 75 percent of crop diversity has already been lost since 1900, as agribusiness focused on increasing the output of a few big cash crops and rare local varieties disappeared.
Habitat destruction has wiped out wild relatives
of food crops, and global warming is exacerbating those effects. By 2050,
the report predicts, 22 percent of wild bean, peanut and potato relatives
will be lost to climate change.
The FAO report calls for an immediate effort to collect and study the remaining wild crop relatives and rare cultivars.
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