We are asking for your collaboration in a survey as part of the EU-funded project Farmer’s Pride in which Eurosite is among the project partners. This project aims to create a European network for the in situ conservation and sustainable use of crop wild relatives and landraces in Europe, to safeguard food, nutritional and economic security. 

As part of this, we are conducting a survey to collect information about in situconservation actions for crop wild relatives, both past and present. Crop wild relatives can be widely defined as all species belonging to a genus that contains a relevant crop, which makes them a very important potential source of diversity for crop enhancement. For example, Raphanus raphanistrum L. is a wild relative of radish (Raphanus sativus L.). 

We are interested in active conservation(involving direct actions on the target species, such as monitoring, habitat improvement, herbivory control, etc.) as opposed to passive conservation(conferred by the mere presence of the species in a protected area). 

By gathering this information, we intend to obtain an overview of existing in situ crop wild relative conservation actions and to develop a network showcase that illustrates best practices and examples for their conservation in Europe.

If you are aware of any examples of active conservation of crop wild relatives, we invite you to take 5-10 minutes to complete the survey. Additionally we would greatly appreciate your help in forwarding the survey to contacts who may have information about active conservation actions and could in be interested in Farmer’s Pride.

Thank you very much in advance for your collaboration – your contribution is very important in helping us conserve plant genetic resources for future food, nutrition and economic security.

For more information about the survey or the project, contact José M. Iriondo or Clara Álvarez Muñiz at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain.