The world's "food basket," the list of 64 key crops that make up our daily diet, may need to be updated to take in a greater number of crops, according to a new report from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization.
"We need to ensure a more abundant variety in the world's food basket if we are to sustainably meet food and nutrition needs while conserving biodiversity," FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu says in a press release.
The report, called The Plants that Feed the World, also notes that countries are becoming more interdependent on each other for crop varieties and tastes, and fashions are changing the demand for crops.
The report will be presented at a side event at a meeting this week in Kunming, China, where more than 600 delegates from around the world will discuss how the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture can keep up with the changes brought by factors such as the climate crisis, which is playing havoc with farmers' traditional crops across the globe and threatening the planet's ability to sustainably feed a growing population.
"The diversity of plant genetics makes meaningful agricultural research and innovation possible to foster resilience, enhance food security, and support the livelihoods of rural communities, including women and youth," Qu says in the press release
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Ganesh Natarajan is the Founder and Chairman of 5FWorld, a new platform for funding and developing start-ups, social enterprises and the skills eco-system in India. In the past two decades, he has built two of India’s high-growth software services companies – Aptech and Zensar – almost from scratch to global success.