196 degrees below zero: Latin American scientists to conserve agrobiodiversity in deep freeze

In response to advancing climate change and global population growth, crop breeders are striving to develop varieties that are more productive, resistant to disease, capable of growing in a changing climate, and with characteristics that farmers and consumers demand. Thus they can strengthen food security and help smallholders thrive in a challenging future.

The keys to developing these varieties lie in the vast genetic diversity of crops and their wild relatives, an agrobiodiversity that is largely preserved in the world’s genebanks.