Global Plant Council

A coalition of plant and crop societies across the globe

Global needs and contributions from plant science

The Global Plant Council (GPC)

• The GPC is a coalition of national and regional plant and crop societies from across the globe

• The GPC seeks to bring plant scientists together to work synergistically towards solving the pressing problems we face

• The central focus of GPC is to define and engage in coordinated strategies that impact the most critical global issues:

• World hunger • Sustainable intensification of crop production • Climate change • Health and well-being • Energy • Environmental protection

The Global Plant Council (GPC)

By working together to formulate a shared vision and allowing distribution of effort the Global Plant Council aims to : • Increase awareness of the central importance of plant and crop science • Accelerate progress in solving pressing global problems via plant science based approaches

• Facilitate new research programs to address global challenges

• Enable more effective use of knowledge and resources • Provide a focus and contact point for plant science across the globe

Member Organizations

The GPC is a coalition of over 25 member organizations from across the globe

Read more about the Global Plant Council

In the next 50 years we have to produce more food than ever before in the history of humankind

• World population continues to increase • Per capita food consumption continues to rise • Consumers continue to demand improved taste, convenience, and nutrition

GROWING WORLD POPULATION (B)

Source: FAO, WHO

RISING CEREAL DEMAND (MMT)

1

2 3 4

5 6 7

8 9

1981 1999 2015 2030

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

1981 1999 2015 2030 TRANSITION NATIONS DEVELOPED NATIONS DEVELOPING NATIONS

Unprecedented growth demand for agricultural commodities

0

500

1.000

1.500

2.000

2.500

3.000

2000 2010 2015 2020 2030

Rice

Cotton

Soybeans

Wheat

Corn

Mill

ion

Met

ric To

ns

+102%

+40%

+76%

+28%

+125%

Global crop yields averages are declining Philip G. Pardey, University of Minnesota

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

1920

1925

1930

1935

1940

1945

1950

1955

1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

Yiel

d (M

T/Ha

.)

barley maize millet oats rice rye sorghum soybeans wheat

Maize

Wheat

Rice

1920-1960 Commodity Rate Maize 0.69% Wheat 0.99% Rice 0.49%

1990-2008 Commodity Rate Maize 1.78% Wheat 0.97% Rice 1.07%

1960-1990 Commodity Rate Maize 1.73% Wheat 2.57% Rice 2.19%

2013: the challenge of food security for all remains

Paulo Whitaker/Reuters

• World's hungry are still nearly 1 billion people!

• Increasing poverty in Africa, South Asia and CWANA

• 75% of the poor live in rural areas

• Increasing malnutrition

Society is in transition

Implications for land-use, the environment, rural development, agriculture and the use

of agricultural feedstocks

OIL ECONOMY

BIO ECONOMY

2013+: a time of growing challenges

• Global food security •Enhanced productivity + nutrition •Increased yield •Sustainable production

• Water availability •Drought-tolerant crops •Crops with improved water use efficiency

• Bioenergy •Biomass production to help meet demand for fuel should not compete with food production

• Climate change •Reduce CO2 footprint •Increase fertilizer use efficiency

GPC Priorities

To help identify and coordinate strategic solutions to global challenges, the GPC is focusing on five priority areas: • Sustainable intensification of crop production • Adaptation to a changing climate • Transition to a green economy • Food security and health • Exchange of knowledge, data and resources

GPC Initiatives

The GPC is focusing on a number of initiatives within these priority areas including • Digital Seed Bank Maintaining, understanding and preserving the wealth of crop biodiversity for future generations.

• Bio-fortification of Crops Improving the nutritional quality of current and new crops.

GPC has identified several other challenges for which global plant research needs to find solutions

• Developing perennial rice/wheat/maize • Development of medicinal plant-based products • Increasing/enriching agricultural diversity • Information exchange • Local-level diversity and yield stability • Plant-environment metagenome • Species information for sustainable adaptation capability to

climate change

Agricultural centers of origin developed independently in different parts of the world

Wheat, Barley, Peas, Grapes ~ 13,000 years ago

Maize, Pumpkin, Bean, Potato ~ 10,000 years ago

Rice, Soybean ~ 9,000 years ago

Banana, Coconut

Sorghum, Millet, Coffee

Only three cereal crops deliver nearly 60% of the global calories

Most important crops for food and feed calorie supply

Maize 7%

Rice 26%

Wheat 23%

The increase in crop production between the 1960‘s to 1990‘s was the result of the “Green Revolution”

High-yielding varieties with shorter stems and improved nitrogen use efficiency resulted in increased use of fertilizer and pesticides

Photos courtesy of S. Harrison, LSU Ag center and The World Food Prize.

Breeder and Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug 1914-2009

Source: UNEP/GRID-Arendal 2002, based on Shiklomanov and UNESCO 1999

Water use for agricultural production will continue to rise

Demand for fertilizer is growing primarily in Asia and South-America

Quelle: IFA http://www.fertilizer.org

Existing mineral fertilizer resources will not be able to meet the long-term agricultural needs

• Nitrogen • Current production plants under construction will meet the increasing demand

for nitrogen fertilizer (about 3% / year)

• Phosphate • Current rock phosphate resources are estimated to last the next 200 years • Development of a mining site takes about 5 years

• Potassium • Current resources similar to phosphate but larger deposits • Development of a mining site takes about 8 years

Source: www.yarra.com

The Green Revolution greatly improved crop production and food security, but also decreased crop diversity

Year High-yielding varieties in %

Traditional varieties in %

Spreading monoculture is a potential threat to food security

• Rice diversity is decreasing - in 1986, the single rice variety “IR36” was grown on 11 million hectares in Asia - in China, all rice F1 hybrids grown on 15 million hectares share the same male sterility genes - all modern rice varieties have the same dwarfing gene • Wheat diversity is decreasing - in 1983, 67% of the wheat fields in Bangladesh were planted to a single variety - in Ireland, 90% of the total wheat area is planted to six varieties - in 1949, China used over 10,000 varieties for production, in 1970 on 1,000 remained in use • Diversity of other crops is decreasing - in the Netherlands, for example, the three top varieties of nine major crops covered from 81 to 99% of the respective areas planted. - one cultivar accounted for 94% of the spring barley planted Source: FAO

Monocultures favor the spread of pathogens

“The new strains of stem rust UG99,…, are much more dangerous than those that, 50 years ago, destroyed as much as 20 percent of the American wheat crop.”

Ancient or wild varieties often contain valuable genes that were lost or neglected while breeding high-yielding elite varieties

The Kasalath PSTOL1 gene is a good example of genes present in diverse rice varieties but not in elite mega-varieties

Garris et al Genetics, 2006

Tolerant varieties

- Dular (aus-type)

- Kasalath (aus-type) Intolerant varieties

- IR64 (indica-type)

- Nipponbare (japonica-type)

FR13A

Kasalath

N22

Pokkali

Exploring the potential of Aus-type rice varieties for drought and P-deficiency tolerance

Kasalath and Dular have several genes that are differentially expressed during drought and P-deficiency but that are not differentially expressed or not present in IR64

Venn diagram showing the number of significantly and differentially expressed genes (SDEGs) in particular varieties. RNA-Seq results were divided into two groups, transcripts aligned to Nipponbare (A) and de novo assembled transcripts in tolerant (Dular and Kasalath) and intolerant (IR64) varieties.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a step in the right direction, but not peace of mind!

http://www.croptrust.org

SeedSeq Capturing biodiversity in seed banks around the world Susan McCouch Hannes Dempewolf The Global Crop Diversity Trust

Digital Seed Bank Exploring the basis of crop biodiversity and mining for useful genes Wilhelm Gruissem The Global Plant Council

The Global Plant Council and the Global Plant Diversity Trust have joined forces to capture and understand the mechanisms of biodiversity of our crops present in seed banks around the world

GPC Executive Board

The GPC Executive Board is elected from and by the GPC member organisations representatives • Prof. Wilhelm Gruissem (European Plant Science Organisation) – Acting President and Chair

• Prof. Henry Nguyen (American Society of Agronomy and Crop Science Society of America) - Vice Chair • Prof. Gustavo Habermann (Brazilian Society of Plant Physiology) – Treasurer

• Prof. Kasem Ahmed (African Crop Science Society)

• Prof. Zhihong Xu (Chinese Society of Plant Biologists) • Dr Ruth Bastow – Executive Director

Visit the new GPC website at www.globalplantcouncil.org

Visit the new GPC website at www.globalplantcouncil.org

Thank you...

…solutions to global challenges can be found and future generations will have enough to eat!

…your expertise and help assures that…

…how would the world react if the 1 Billion people of the USA, Canada and the EU would not have enough to eat

every day?

Just to put 1 Billion hungry people into perspective…

Sustainable food security is facing a potential bottleneck

Total kultiviert Heute kultiviert 95% der Ernährung

• Since the beginning of agriculture, humans have cultivated 7,000 plant species • Today only 150 plant species (2%) are agriculturally relevant for food and clothing • Only 10 plant species are cultivated today to provide 95% of food and feed

Total cultivated since the beginning of agriculture

Cultivated today 95% of food and feed