Our mission
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Our mission is to ensure the conservation and availability of crop diversity for food security worldwide.

It has never been more critical to conserve crop diversity. We need the greatest possible diversity of crops to secure our food supply at a time when we are making unprecedented demands, and putting unprecedented pressure, on our environment.

 

A 10,000 YEAR LEGACY WE CAN’T LEAVE TO CHANCE

 

Throughout the history of agriculture, farmers have generated a seemingly endless diversity within crops, discovering ingenious solutions to local challenges. Meanwhile, many of the wild relatives of these crops have also persisted in nature, adapting to tough environments. Crop diversity allows farmers to feed the world. But this diversity is not in fact endless. It is disappearing, and once lost, it’s lost forever.

 We need crop diversity both in farmer’s fields and stored in genebanks – available to all through an efficient global system to ensure that nutritious food will be available at stable and affordable prices without expanding agriculture’s footprint. Safeguarding biodiversity in – and around – agriculture is a prerequisite for food security.

No single institution can hold this diversity, which amounts to millions of distinct crop varieties, and make it available to plant breeders and farmers around the world. The Crop Trust brings together and secures those genebanks that are tasked by the international community with conserving this legacy for all of us.

  • Crop Diversity: Why It Matters

    Crop diversity is the foundation of agriculture, enabling it to evolve and adapt to meet the never-ending challenge of sustainably producing sufficient and nutritious food for an increasing population. Solutions to the challenges threatening our food system can be found through utilizing the amazing wealth of diversity of our food crops.

  • The Endowment Fund

    At the heart of our task is the self-sustaining Crop Diversity Endowment Fund, a permanent legacy, supporting the foundation of our food. Each year, a portion of the fund’s value is paid out to ensure conservation and maintenance of crop diversity held in genebanks.

     

  • CropsInColor

    The Crop Trust launched the CropsinColor campaign in December 2015 to highlight not only the importance of crop diversity for food security and adaptation to climate change, but its beauty – found all around us. The awareness raising campaign was a collaboration with Getty Images made possible by an exclusive project sponsorship by DuPont Pioneer.