Agricultural Crop Diversity: Status, Challenges, and Solutions

India is rich in biological diversity, being one of the 17 mega-biodiverse countries in the world. It has an amazing range of habitats available in its 10 + 1 bio-geographic zones (Singh 2017a, b), habiting about 20,141 taxa of higher plants (angiosperms) with 17,926 species belonging to 2991 genera and 251 families, representing approximately 7% of the described higher plant species in the world (Karthikeyan 2009). As per archaeological evidence, the Indian Subcontinent has played an important role in the origin and evolution of agriculture from the hunters-gatherers stage to domiculture and to settled agriculture exploiting both flora and fauna. These efforts led to the evolution of the Indus Valley Civilization developed and flourished nearly 5000 years ago (3300–1300 BCE; mature period 2600–1900 BCE), Vedic Civilization (1500–500 BCE), Mahajanapada (600–400 BCE), etc., as gleaned from the findings of numerous archaeological sites across the country. Recent studies have shown that the process of origin and evolution of agriculture predominantly occurred at 21 agricultural biodiversity heritage sites, spread over the subcontinent with domestication, adaption, and cultivation of many crop species suited to diverse ecologies offered by the subcontinent (Singh 2015). These fell parallel to 21 agro-ecological zones, identified for the subcontinent (Sehgal et al. 1992) with a rich diversity of crops and genetic diversity in adapted crop species (Fig. 11.1), throughout ecological zones and beyond, under more than 120 production systems. Significant progress has been made in the collection, characterization, conservation, and utilization of crop diversity in crop improvement. However, there remain gaps needing new approaches for effective management and sustainable use, including bioinformatics, genomics and molecular breeding, and engineering cultigens meeting the emerging challenges.

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Authors and Affiliations

1. Division of Germplasm Conservation, National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi, India Anurudh K. Singh
2. ICRISAT, Patancheru, Telangana, India Anurudh K. Singh

1. Anurudh K. Singh