”If the temperature increases by one degree the yield of rice, for example, will be reduced by ten per cent. Scientists agree that temperatures will increase by considerably more than that, therefore food production runs the risk of being drastically reduced if we do not adapt our cultivated plants to the climate”, said Cary Fowler, Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, one of the partners in the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard.

Fowler underlined the importance of breeding plants that are adapted to higher temperatures.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization FAO’s Assistant Director-General Alexander Mueller said that attention must be drawn to the link between genetic resources and climate change in the current climate process. According to Müller this aspect should be included in the new climate treaty which the countries of the world will hopefully come to agreement on at the climate summit in Copenhagen in December.

The theme of the Nordic event at this year’s CSD-17 (Commission on Sustainable Development) was the importance of genetic resources for ensuring global food security in a changing climate. One of the objectives was to present Nordic solutions in this area, for example the Svalbard seed vault which was opened in 2008. The vault houses seeds from about 200 countries - the idea is that species which are lost due to, for example, drought or floods can be re-established with stored seeds from Svalbard.

Apart from the vault, the Nordic countries have participated actively in the development of gene banks in Africa and Asia. One project, which has been running since the end of the 80s, has been to build up regional gene bank partnerships in the SADC region of southern Africa (Southern African Development Community).

Paul Munyenyembe, Director of SADC’s regional gene resource bank, expressed his thanks for Nordic support which, amongst other things, has led to the gene bank having seeds from almost 14,000 different crops from the region in safe keeping.

”When we began to build up gene bank partnerships 20 years ago it was all financed by the Nordic countries. Today the SADC member countries are responsible themselves for 90 per cent of the expenses”, said Munyenyembe.

Not only is it important to focus attention on crop genetic resources, but also on livestock genetics. Ilse Köller-Rollefson from the interest group Pastoral Peoples said that one third of the world's livestock breeds were threatened with extinction, chiefly because of intensive breeding.

This year’s UN conference on sustainable development focused on Africa, agriculture, drought & desertification.