The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations today published new guidelines aimed at assuring crop diversity and farmers' resilience to plant genetic resource loss.

The Voluntary Guidelines for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Farmers Varieties/Landraces are a valuable aid tocountries in developing national plans to conserve these critical crop resources.

Farmers' varieties and landraces are populations of a cultivated crop that are often genetically diverse  with high local adaptation to the growing environment. They are associated with a set of indigenous knowledge regarding farmers' practices of seed selection and field management. The dynamic management of farmers' varieties/landraces, including their exposure to different production regimes, environments, farmers' selection and seed preservation and exchange systems, maintains a reservoir of continuously evolving genetic variability. They often have preferred agronomic or culinary qualities or relate to locally important cultural values and make an important contribution to food and nutrition security, rural livelihoods, coping with climate change and even human survival.