Wild crops are being threatened by intensive farming, deforestation and urbanization. Twenty different kinds of rice, wheat, and even yam plants have recently been listed as threatened by the IUCN’s red list. IUCN is the International Union for Conservation of Nature that provides knowledge and tools to help us protect our environment. Commercial crops are losing their genetic diversity. They are affected by climate change and drought and disease. To help combat these effects , wild crops can be bred with modern crops to help boost their resilience and protect their food sources.
The wild wheat plants that are in danger are near or in the Middle East, or in war torn regions that are off limits to conservationists.To help keep our crops alive and healthy, we need to make sure that there is an effort for the conservation of our wild plants so that they can breed with each other and improve their genetics.The economic value of wild crops is 115 billion dollars a year to the global economy. Yams are an important source of food, as they feed around 100 million people in Africa alone. Conservationists are making an effort to make sure wild yam plants are available to provide food and medicines worldwide. It’s very serious that we have people make an effort to preserve our earth so that it can still help us by producing food.
