A new project funded by the European Union, Pro-Wild, seeks to protect farmers and the food industry from the effects of climate change by taking advantage of the genetic diversity of wild relatives of crops such as wheat, sugar beet, and oilseed rape.
Running from 2024 to 2029, the project commenced in September, launched at an event that saw representatives from 19 international partner institutions come together to outline the roadmap for the project and establish areas for collaboration.
Jacques Le Gouis, Pro-Wild project coordinator, spoke to SustainabilityOnline.net about the project, and the specific challenges that climate change poses when it comes to sustainable agriculture.
Addressing the effects of climate change
“There are two aspects of climate change that Pro-Wild aims to address,” Le Gouis explains. “First is the threat to crop wild relatives (CWR), whose habitats may be threatened by changing climatic conditions, in addition to urbanisation and intensive agriculture.
“Pro-Wild will conduct genetic studies to assess the vulnerability of populations to climate change. It will identify threatened populations that are not well represented in collections and sample them so that their genetic potential is conserved in gene banks and they can be characterised for traits of interest.
“Second, it will identify CWR with traits that, when transferred to breeders, can help produce crops that are better adapted to climate change. This will mainly concern drought, which will be evaluated under control conditions, but also under field conditions, taking advantage of the large experimental network made possible by the extended partnership [from the UK to Israel]. Resistance to a range of pests and diseases in wheat, beet and oilseed rape will also be addressed.”
Genetic diversity
According to Le Gouis, crop accessions, whether modern or ancient, represent “only a small fraction” of the genetic diversity potentially available, largely due to the fact that only a small percentage of plants have been domesticated, eliminating diversity in the process.
CWR, therefore, are “a potential reservoir of useful diversity for traits related to adaptation to climate change and disease resistance,” he says. “Specifically for wheat, Pro-Wild also aims to look for traits related to the nutritional value of the grain, such as protein concentration and composition, mineral (zinc, iron, calcium), fibre and starch content.”
As part of the project, Pro-Wild seeks to garner new knowledge on valuable traits of CWR, such as “tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses or nutritional properties”, which, by becoming more easily available to breeders “accelerates the breeding of more resilient crop varieties”.
Success, in this context, will be measured by several factors, including the identification and characterisation of CWR; the availability of adaptability traits; the incorporation and performance of CWR in breeding: and the extent of CWR usage and performance under various conditions.
Taking action
While Pro-Wild is a five-year project, the researchers are keen to accelerate action in surveying and characterising CWR populations, as well as propose new sites for conservation.
“We also plan to rapidly survey and add to the CWR available in gene banks to create a pan-European collection of conserved gene pools available to the bioscience community,” says Le Gouis.
“The development of well-characterised populations crossing CWR to elite cultivars that will be available for breeding will take longer. Nevertheless, we expect to deliver relevant populations for pre-breeding, thanks to the direct involvement of breeders in the evaluation of the most advanced material.”
Pro-Wild has also been developed to align with broader European agricultural policies and sustainability goals – including the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030; the Farm to Fork Strategy (F2F); the EU Green Deal and the UN Sustainable Development Goals – particularly SDG 13 (Climate Action) and SDG 15 (Life on Land).
Engagement with agriculture
The project also plans to engage the agricultural community and relevant stakeholders as it progresses, as well as underline the importance of the conservation and promotion of crop wild relatives.
“A communication and dissemination plan will be established to provide clear guidelines and tools for engaging various stakeholders,” says Le Gouis. “A stakeholder engagement strategy is currently established to map relevant stakeholders and understand their communication preferences.
“Using the AIDA model (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action), the initiative will attract attention and foster interest in the importance of CWR for food security and climate resilience. The initiative will leverage existing networks like EU CAP Network and the EU FarmBook, to broaden its outreach and engage stakeholders actively in the project’s objectives.”
In summary, the Pro-Wild project will aim to “significantly impact” farmers and agricultural practices in Europe and beyond by enhancing sustainability and food security through improved knowledge, access to diverse genetic resources “for the development of climate-adapted varieties that, in the best case, can be cultivated with fewer chemical inputs”, and future policy recommendations.
“Promoting the use of CWR throughout the agricultural value chain [will] enhance the resilience of European agriculture and contribute to food security,” Le Gouis adds.
Additional contributions by Nina Gallmann. Find out more about Pro-Wild here.
