Gene bank to fight disease and boost food security
generations by investing in "gene banks" which can be deployed in
the war on hunger and disease, a prominent scientist said on Monday
The world needs to conserve its variety of plants for future generations by investing in "gene banks" which can be deployed in the war on hunger and disease, a prominent scientist said on Monday.
Plant varieties are becoming extinct at an unprecedented rate, with eight per cent of plant species running the risk of extinction in the next 25 years, increasing pressure on the international community to preserve the remaining plant genetic resources, geneticists say.
Over the past 50 years new high-yielding uniform varieties of crops have taken the place of thousands of local varieties across large productive areas.
"There is enormous wealth in the existing gene banks," Ismail Serageldin, an agricultural scientist and director-general of Alexandria's new Library, a state-of-the-art research complex, told a biotechnology conference.
"We need to protect them for future generations," Serageldin, a former Vice-President of the World Bank and author of a book on biotechnology, said in a keynote speech.
Serageldin is a trustee of the Global Conservation Trust, a body backed by the Rome-based United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which aims to conserve international and national collections of seeds and other plant genetic resources, so-called "gene banks".
The Trust is appealing for $260 million (€294.9m) from donors for a fund to help conserve and use plant genetic resources around the world."Conserving genetic resources is a challenge for all humanity," Serageldin said."Without genetic resources from plants, we lose one of our greatest tools to alleviate poverty, provide food security, fight disease and protect the environment," he added.Some 800 million people go to bed hungry, according to the United Nations.
Serageldin added that plant genetic diversity had shrunk rapidly as farmers demanded more productive crops. According to the FAO, some 10,000 plant species have been used over time for human food and agriculture, but now no more than 120 cultivated species provide 90 per cent of human food supplied by plants.
The conference, entitled "Biotechnology and sustainable development: Voices of the South and North", ends on Tuesday.
