ICARDA’S Genebank Resources and Activities: A Vital Tool in Ensuring a Food-Secure Future for Dryland Communities

Abstract

Agrobiodiversity is one of the world’s most precious resources for ensuring food security as climate change, globally diminishing natural resource base and rapidly growing population pose an unprecedented challenge to feed the future generations. Genebanks provide conservation of crop germplasm from the world over and make them available to crop scientists seeking to develop improved crop varieties with traits that can withstand stresses such as diseases, pests, salinity, drought and other harsh weather conditions. They can also serve in the rehabilitation of degraded farming systems and ecosystems.