Plant Genetic Resources and their Exploitation in the Plant breeding for Food and Agriculture

Abstract

At the World Food Summit in 1996, the global community agreed to the goal to halve the number of starving people by 2015. In regard to this ambitious goal crop diversity is essential to provide food security in the long term. The thousands of different crop varieties that have been developed over centuries by farmers and plant breeders, together with their wild relatives, carry the genes that will allow humanity to tailor its future plant food supply. The Food Pyramid shows that the groups of foods that should be consumed most to provide the body with protein, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals are of plant origin, i.e. cereals and vegetables.