Developing Climate-Resilient Crops

Genetic mitigation needs require a species-by-species and region-by-region analysis of projected environmental issues. This may be done through close interactions among breeders, farmers, and climate change scientists. Although adaptation is highly site specific, sets of sites may exist across the globe that face similar adaptation issues or where the current environment may represent projected future environment for some other regions. Such locations may be extensively utilized to screen available germplasm resources and also for raising crops continuously and naturally, developing crop populations as germplasm conduits for global plant breeding efforts. Comparing adaptation experiences between each of the world's geoclimatic groupings and promoting cross-learning is desirable. Participatory breeding and participatory varietal selection may help fast track the development of climate-resilient crop varieties and cropping systems aimed at multiple breeding targets. Such efforts may further be optimized by knowledge consolidation relative to CO2 assimilation, nutrient dynamics, mixed cropping, vectors, pests, diseases, intercropping, water use, temperature responses, gene pools, and genomic resources in plants. Amalgamation of conservation genetics and genomics with breeding is essential to involve the whole adaptation process from bio-reserves to genes to cultivars. It is also advantageous to look for ways to create a balance between requirements of intellectual property rights, access and benefit sharing, and equitable access for farmers to breeding materials. Development of decision-support tools to help prioritize actionable strategies, technologies, and practices and to manage trade-offs is imperative. In addition, in biodiversity hotspots, both incentives and institutional support must be provided to empower indigenous farmers and conservators, particularly women. Present crop management and germplasm improvement strategies need to be integrated with new results and best practices from related knowledge domains. Increased investments in climate change research (adaptation and mitigation) are needed.