A group of internationally renowned crop scientists have called for a new global crop network which will help tackle pressing issues affecting food security across the world.
Writing in the journal Science this month, the group recommend founding a Global Crop Improvement Network (GCIN) to take a worldwide approach to crop research.
The scientists want the Network to include most staple crops, and stated it would “revolutionise” research.
They said it would gain insight into crop performance in different environments, speeding up breakthroughs and implementation of research findings.
The Network would work with existing national crop research systems. The scientists said it could be supported through public-private partnerships, using a model based on the successful International Wheat Improvement Network established in the 1960s.
Prof. Powell, who is a former CGIAR chief scientist, said: “Through the international research collaboration and data-sharing that underpins IWIN and the recommended GCIN, we have a huge opportunity to tackle in new ways the big global challenges of food and nutrition security.
“For Scotland and the UK to make its rightful contribution to such important global initiatives we must become better at sharing resources through a commitment to open science.
“SRUC and the other Scottish research institutes are major producers and curators of long term experimental and observational data, meaning we are ideally positioned to generate new knowledge of benefit to tackling national and global food production issues.”
