Conservation of Crop Genetic Diversity for Sustainable Agriculture

Abstract

Crop genetic diversity is crucial for the environment, for feeding humanity and for sustainable agriculture development, which is providing genetic barriers against different biotic and abiotic stresses; however, it is being lost at an alarming rate. Fortunately, more and more people are conscious of the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources goes far beyond avoiding the extinction of species, and the objective must be to conserve and use as much diversity as possible within each species. There is now a need for an integrated strategy for the conservation and management of crop genetic diversity and the organization of related information at several levels, for instance, at the highest level, it is necessary for entire agro-ecosystem, and also applies to the gene pools of individual crops at the interspecies level as well as at the intervarietal levels. This paper assesses the estimates methods on different genetic diversity in crop, introduces the status of crop genetic diversity, and prospects the significant conservation of crop genetic diversity for sustainable agriculture in the future.