“Everything starts with the seed” – a story about the work of WorldVeg

With the subtitle “A global organisation working to rescue vegetable diversity neatly combines old and new technologies”, journalist Natalie Parletta presents a most informative description of the wonderful world of vegetables, and the role of WorldVeg. Over ten colorful pages, the article describes numerous facets of how the Center contributes to safeguarding and sharing this biodiversity, that is essential for a more resilient future for farming, food production and the livelihoods of smallholder farmers, processors and traders alike.

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We first read about how one scientist from Benin learned the value of indigenous vegetables from his grandmother, and who now manages Africa’s largest collection of these crops at the WorldVeg genebank in Tanzania. We read about the value of and need for diversifying both farming systems and our diets with more vegetables, from others who lead different aspects of research and development at WorldVeg. And we learn how, new high tech ways of DNA sequencing, measuring plant physiology, and number crunching analysis, is allowing rapid screening and selection of new varieties more tolerant to pests, diseases, heat and drought, that are so wanted in our warming world.

This article was originally published in Cosmos, Issue 102 (March 2024) print magazine https://cosmosmagazine.com/shop/issues/buy-cosmos-magazine-future-forecast-march-2024/

Posted with permission from the publisher, with many thanks.

Parletta N. 2024. Everything starts with the seed. Cosmos Magazine, 102:46-55.