Letters:
Message from the Chair of the Executive Board
Feeding a growing population is one of the most pressing issues of our time. In the coming year, the world’s farmers will need to produce more, and more nutritious, food – on less land, with less water, and with fewer inputs. I know. I am a farmer. And things certainly have changed since I began working the land in Boree Creek, Australia. Agriculture will only get harder and harder. But the one thing that cannot – and will not – change is our dependence on crop diversity.
Crop diversity provides farmers and plant breeders with options for adapting our food crops to present and future challenges. This is why the work of the Crop Trust is fundamental to our survival. It is also why I agreed to join the Crop Trust Executive Board in 2013. And why I readily assumed the role of Board Chair in 2017.
During these years, I have seen how a small, multicultural and multi-talented team of dedicated people based in Bonn, Germany, has been fighting the good fight. For them, every day is a crop diversity day. And this Annual Report provides us with an overview of their efforts to build and sustain, long-term, a global system for ex situ conservation. But what does this mean?
Be it working with the 11 international CGIAR centers that together hold and make available some of the world’s largest collections of crop diversity; or providing quality management training and equipment upgrades to national genebanks; or investing in improved data systems so crop collection curators can keep better track of the diversity they hold – it all leads to the development of a rational system of conservation that benefits us all.
Last year we also celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the ultimate back-up for the world’s crop genebanks. The Seed Vault is also a universal symbol of humanity’s common goal: to secure crop diversity now, for a sustainable, food-secure future.
In March 2018, the Crop Trust Executive Board met in Saint Petersburg, where we were hosted by the Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry (VIR). There is so much history there – of the man, Nikolai Vavilov, who developed the concept of the centers of origin of cultivated plants – but also of the hundreds of thousands of seed samples stored at the Institute. These include seeds collected by Vavilov and his team, that will serve us in the future.
Later in the year, the Crop Trust took the historic decision to fully fund the essential operations of the genebank of the International Rice Research Institute – the world’s largest rice genebank – forever. This proves that the Crop Trust’s endowment fund works and I am sure that, in the years to come, this unprecedented achievement will expand to many other important crop collections.
Whether you realise it or not, we all depend on crop diversity – from my fellow farmers in Australia or the Andes, to consumers in Sydney or Stockholm. The same holds true for nations across our globe. Indeed, we live in an interdependent world. We must work together to make sure the basis of our foods is not only secure, but within the reach of farmers and plant breeders everywhere.
That is why I commend in particular the governments of Germany, the United States of America, Switzerland, Finland, India, and Australia, for their generous support to the Crop Trust In 2018. The European Commission, the CGIAR Fund Council, Univeler, Corteva Agriscience, and Catan GmbH also contributed to the Crop Trust’s mission last year.
I must also applaud the many individuals who have taken it upon themselves to help us raise awareness on this issue. Among them, His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales, global patron of the Crop Trust, who kindly hosted a “Forgotten Foods” reception at his London residence in February.
For me, it has truly been a great privilege to be a part of the Crop Trust. Regrettably, earlier this year I stepped down as the organization’s Executive Board Chair. I made this decision with some reluctance, but needed to follow my doctors’ advice. But rest assured, I will continue supporting Sir Peter Crane, the newly-elected Board Chair; the Crop Trust’s tireless Executive Director, Marie Haga; and the many dedicated, determined staff and partners who help keep that irreplaceable crop diversity alive and available for all of humanity.
Tim Fischer AC, Chair of the Executive Board
