Open Access

Food insecurity and malnutrition undermine human health, livelihoods, and aspirations. In 2023, 2.8 billion people, more than a third of the world’s population, could not afford a healthy diet, while 733 million were chronically undernourished (FAO et al., 2024). In addition, diet-related health costs could surpass US$1.3 trillion per year by 2030 (FAO et al., 2020). Climate change further exacerbates the problem of achieving zero hunger. Promoting the production of a wide range of fruits, vegetables, roots and tubers, nuts, oil crops, pulses, and grains enables a nutritious food supply for healthy diets with crops from different food groups that complement each other in nutritional content. Many of these are called ‘neglected,’ ‘underutilized,’ or ‘orphan’ crops and are adapted to harsh environmental conditions. Many are rich in micronutrients, produce in off-seasons, and are strongly connected to local customs and traditions (van Zonneveld et al., 2023). Supporting healthy diets in a changing climate has led these to be called ‘opportunity crops’ because while neglected in agricultural research and development, and suffering from underinvestment, they have a huge unrealized potential to improve food and nutrition security in the context of climate change (Fredenberg et al., 2024). Unfortunately, limited access to quality seed for these crops is a major bottleneck to more widespread production, as the existing policy environment does not currently support farmers to broaden their crop portfolio (McMullin et al., 2021). This paper identifies four major conditions that need to be met to scale farmer access to quality seed of opportunity crops. These are to (i) include the diversity of opportunity crops in policy strategies, (ii) make it available for selection and breeding, (iii) use it in breeding and agricultural extension, and (iv) make it accessible to farmers, especially women and other disadvantaged groups. To meet these conditions, eight policy actions are proposed with a high chance of short-term impacts, plus a multiplier effect for longer-term investment in developing more nutritious crop varieties in a changing climate. Adopting any or all of these policy actions would contribute to a more enabling policy environment for scaling the supply and delivery of quality seed of opportunity crops to farmers worldwide. Page 3 of 26 The eight proposed policy actions in this paper are as follows. 1. Prioritize and incorporate opportunity crops in national and regional strategies and policies. 2. Establish a global task force to support governments in priority setting and targeting investments in opportunity crops. 3. Encourage countries to use the Multilateral System of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture to share genetic resources of opportunity crops. 4. Develop and implement regional roadmaps to rescue, conserve, and use the genetic resources of opportunity crops. 5. Strengthen capacity for breeding and sed production of opportunity crops. 6. Develop innovation networks to expand agricultural extension services for opportunity crops. 7. Increase the rate of registration and release of opportunity crop varieties. 8. Enhance seed delivery of opportunity crops to farmers, especially women and other disadvantaged groups. As described in this paper, these eight policy actions recognize the value and role of the wide range of people and public, private, and societal organizations involved in the maintenance, development, and deployment of quality seed. Implementing these policy actions will help mainstream opportunity crops in seed systems as part of a broader strategy to diversify our food systems from seed to plate.

Text in English

Sperling, L.J. : No CIMMYT Affiliation