Discussion on the Way Forward to Harness Genetic Resources for Crop Adaptation to Climate Change

Climate change is expected to have an increasingly damaging impact on the sustainability of crop productivity due to drastic changes in precipitation and temperature, reduced water and nutrient availability and increased incidence of diseases and pests. This daunting scenario requires ‘genetic armoring’ of future crop varieties with ‘climate-resilience genes’ conferring growth plasticity, biotic and abiotic stress resistance, higher efficiency in carbon sequestration and utilization of soil nutrients. Additionally, climate change will aggravate genetic erosion of climate-resilient genepools, particularly the local landraces and wild crop relatives, many of which are rich in nutraceuticals and thus could be utilized for developing novel functional food crops. ‘Genetic treasuring’ and sequencing of such donor germplasm for genetic introgression of alien donor genes through employment of post-genomic strategies and tools is imperative. It is equally important to educate the new generation of plant breeders on conservation and utilization of biodiversity employing genomics-based molecular breeding. All these goals can be achieved only through a global networking of scientists and stronger public-private partnerships. A critical discussion on the constraints, options and opportunities offered by genomics approaches and molecular-assisted breeding will facilitate defining the roadmap of future initiatives under the ‘Global Challenges Require Global Solutions’ program.