Talk - From maize to mungongo: Kew and food security in the 21st century

Thu 27 June 2013, 7pm

Since the advent of intensive agriculture mankind has relied on fewer and fewer plant species for food. Using examples from around the world, this talk examines some key solutions being developed for long term food security.

Seeds in the vault at the Millennium Seed Bank

Event details

Date and time: Thursday 27 June 2013, 7pm
Speaker: Dr Paul Smith
Location: Jodrell Lecture Theatre, Kew Gardens
Tickets: £5 (£4 Friends of Kew)
Booking: Recommended as places are limited

How to book - please download a booking form (pdf) or email us for more information.

About the talk

Since the advent of intensive agriculture, humanity has relied on fewer and fewer plant species for food. Today, 80% of our plant calorie intake comes from just 12 plants - eight grasses and four tubers. By 2050 there will be 9 billion people on this planet. Can we continue to rely on such a tiny fraction of plant diversity for all of our future needs?

At Kew we discover, document, conserve and supply seeds from a wide range of edible plant diversity. Our collections include the wild relatives and progenitors of our most important crops, undomesticated food plants, and plants being developed as the crops of the future. Taking examples from all over the world, Dr Smith will illustrate Kew’s work and that of its partner institutions in developing solutions to long-term food security using the whole array of edible plant diversity.

Dr Paul Smith is Head of Kew’s Seed Conservation Department and leader of the Millennium Seed Bank (MSB) Partnership, a network of over 120 plant science institutions in 54 countries. In October 2009 the Partnership achieved its first milestone of storing seed from 10% of the world’s plant species both in the MSB and in the countries of origin. Over the next 10 years the Partnership will seek to secure 25% of the world’s flora in seed banks and to enable the use of that seed for human innovation in agriculture, horticulture, forestry and habitat restoration.

This lecture has been generously supported by the Dr.H.Shawdon Charitable Trust