Why Diversity?

DArT P/L is committed to delivering technologies and services that will help to diversify agricultural systems, through providing better and more affordable ways of capturing the value of genetic diversity.

Humans seem to cherish diversity of all kinds, from landscapes and biological diversity to cultural and culinary forms of diversity. The various kinds of diversity are, of course, related and feed into one another.

It is a paradox that we often behave in ways that threaten diversity. The recent dominance of monoculture in agriculture (in historical terms) is one of the most obvious examples. Closely linked to it is the risk of eroding crop genetic diversity in the modern breeding process. The loss of genetic diversity would lead directly to the inability of crops to adapt to changes in the environment. This is dangerous as it could lead, for example, to large scale damage of susceptible crops to new diseases.

Read more about promoting crop diversity.