The Norwegian government has pledged $23.7 million (£14.7m) to aid conservation of the world's most important food crops, citing the critical need for crop diversity at a time when populations are soaring and climate change is threatening staples like rice and maize.

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According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, crop diversity has dwindled in the past 100 years. Professor Zakri Abdul Hamid, chair of the UN Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, said in May this year that biodiversity in key agricultural crops has declined by 75 percent over the past century. Although genetic diversity in field crops has been badly affected, varieties of heritage and horticultural crops are thought to have been worst hit, suffering declines of between 80 and 90 percent since the end of the 19^th Century.

This loss of diversity and the homogenisation of the plants on which humans rely for nourishment mean production is now more susceptible to disease and the effects of climate change. The current agricultural paradigm has championed crops that yield higher, but neglected other important areas of focus such as nutritional value or hardiness.

Marie Haga, Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which will distribute the Norwegian funds, said, "In just ten years we will have a billion more people at the global dinner table, but during that same time we could see climate change diminish rice production by ten percent with a one degree increase in temperature. Our best hedge against disaster is to make sure we have a wide array of food crops at our disposal to keep harvests healthy in the bread baskets of the world."

The investment by Norway will go towards collecting, conserving and utilising seeds and plants threatened by the loss of agricultural biodiversity. In particular, Crop Diversity Trust directors said the money would enable them to pursue international cooperation in achieving their mission.

The aim is to ensure farmers and researchers have access to a large diversity of seeds and other plant genetic material to address a variety of risks, including those caused by extreme weather, plant pests that are emerging or increasing their range and diseases – all of which are expected to become more commonplace as climate change continues to alter growing conditions.

The Trust said that international cooperation to this end is essential as, for example, a trait which needed to ensure maize can continue to be productive as temperatures rise in Kenya might lie in a crop relative only found in Mexico.

"For farmers to adapt to climate change, we need to make sure we preserve every known variety of crops like rice, maize, wheat, potatoes, along with those of less familiar crops like sorghum and cassava," Haga said.  "And we need to preserve their wild relatives as well."

The world's crop diversity is conserved in farmers' fields, which is called "in-situ" conservation, and in genebanks, which is known as "ex-situ" conservation. But diversity has dwindled as farmers have steadily cultivated a narrower band of crop varieties and genebanks have suffered from insufficient funding. Meanwhile, a recent study of the 29 most important food crops revealed severe threats to just over half of their wild relatives-species that can hold valuable traits for plant breeders.

Haga concluded, "Conserving and making crop diversity available provides options. One of these options might just save the future of agriculture and the future of the food we eat."