Wild Plant Varieties and Species: Critical Resources for Food Security and Agricultural Resilience

The food on your plate has a hidden backstory – one that leads back to wild plants growing in forests, savannahs, and mountain slopes around the world. These wild varieties and species, often overlooked in favour of commercially bred crops, are among the most critical resources humanity has for securing future food supplies. From providing genetic traits that make our crops more resilient to directly nourishing communities as dietary supplements, wild plants are indispensable to both agricultural science and everyday survival.

Why wild varieties matter: the genetic reservoir 🔗

Every crop we grow today – wheat, rice, maize, potato, banana, coffee – was once a wild plant. Through thousands of years of domestication, humans selected specific traits like larger seeds, better taste, and higher yield. But this selection process came at a cost: genetic narrowing. Most major crops now derive from a very limited genetic base, making them vulnerable to diseases, pests, and changing climates.

Wild varieties and their close relatives, often called crop wild relatives (CWRs), still carry the broad genetic diversity that cultivated crops have lost. Research published in the journal Evolutionary Applications highlights that CWRs have evolved in natural environments for thousands of years and retain a much higher level of genetic diversity than domesticated cultivars. This diversity is a treasure trove for plant breeders looking to introduce traits like drought tolerance, disease resistance, and improved nutritional quality into modern crops.

Consider some concrete examples. Wild relatives of wheat have contributed genes for rust resistance – a fungal disease that threatens wheat harvests globally. Wild tomato species from South America have provided genes for heat and salinity tolerance. Wild relatives have contributed valuable traits to crops as diverse as cotton, chickpea, barley, cassava, and sunflower, helping them resist pests, tolerate environmental stress, and improve yield.

The Green Revolution and wild genetic material 🔗

The Green Revolution of the mid-20th century is one of the clearest demonstrations of what happens when breeders harness genetic diversity. Led by scientists like Norman Borlaug, breeding programmes developed high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of wheat and rice by combining traits from different plant strains – including wild and semi-wild varieties.

Cereal production more than doubled in developing nations between 1961 and 1985, driven by these improved varieties alongside better irrigation and fertiliser use. In Asia, rice and wheat yields doubled between the 1970s and 1990s. As the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew notes, the Green Revolution significantly increased calories produced per acre of farmland and helped halve poverty rates in parts of Asia.

But here’s the critical point: the very success of the Green Revolution depended on access to diverse genetic material. Without wild varieties contributing resistance genes and adaptive traits, the high-yielding varieties would have remained highly susceptible to disease outbreaks. Wild rice species, for instance, were essential in developing the famous IR8 variety – the so-called “miracle rice” that transformed food production across the Philippines and India.

The downside: genetic erosion 🔗

Ironically, the Green Revolution also accelerated the loss of genetic diversity. Farmers abandoned traditional landraces in favour of a handful of new high-yielding varieties. This narrowed the genetic base of major crops even further. According to Kew, we now rely on just 15 crops for 90% of the world’s energy intake, with rice, maize, and wheat serving as staples for over half the global population. This dependence makes our food system dangerously fragile – if a new disease strikes one of these crops, the consequences could be catastrophic.

This is precisely why conserving wild varieties is more urgent than ever. They represent the raw genetic material needed to keep adapting our crops to new challenges.

Wild foods as dietary supplements 🔗

Wild plants are not just important in the laboratory or breeding station. In many parts of the world, people eat wild plants directly – and these plants are vital for food security and nutrition.

In the West African Sahel, for example, rural communities routinely collect fruits, leaves, roots, and shoots from native wild plants to supplement their cereal-based diets. A study published in Plant Foods for Human Nutrition analysed four wild food plants from this region and found that they contain useful amounts of protein, zinc, calcium, iron, and copper – nutrients often lacking in grain-heavy diets. During periods when cereal harvests fail, these wild plants become critical for survival.

Another study from Niger examined seven wild plant species commonly gathered in the Sahel and confirmed that they provide important amino acids, fatty acids, and trace minerals. Species like Moringa oleifera and Amaranthus viridis were found to be particularly rich in iron and selenium. These findings reinforce the idea that wild edible plants are not a marginal food source – they are nutritional lifelines for millions of people.

Who relies on wild foods? 🔗

It’s not just West Africa. Research from Ethiopia shows that rural communities across the country use wild edible plants as survival food during droughts and famines, and as regular dietary supplements even in normal times. These plants are rich in proteins, vitamins B2 and C, and various minerals, serving as alternatives to conventional plant-based diets.

According to recent research, pre-agricultural human societies used at least 7,039 edible plant species worldwide. Today, the FAO estimates that roughly 1.6 billion people – about 25% of the world’s population – rely on wild plant resources for some part of their livelihood. Poorer households tend to depend on wild foods more heavily than wealthier ones, making these resources a critical safety net against hunger and malnutrition.

More than 800 edible wild species catalogued 🔗

The sheer diversity of edible wild plants is staggering. FAO documentation notes that more than 800 species of edible wild plants have been catalogued in certain regions, with many more likely undocumented. In Kenya alone, approximately 800 species out of a total flora of 7,000 vascular plants are used as food in some form – as fruits, vegetables, tubers, roots, edible gums, resins, and spices.

These plants provide far more than just calories. They supply essential vitamins and micronutrients that staple grains like rice and wheat often lack. Wild leafy vegetables, for instance, can be rich in vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, and zinc. Wild fruits contribute antioxidants and dietary fibre. This nutritional diversity is especially important in regions where diets are heavily dependent on one or two staple crops and rates of micronutrient deficiency – sometimes called “hidden hunger” – are high.

The meaning of “wild food” 🔗

The term “wild food” can be a bit misleading. It doesn’t necessarily mean completely untouched by humans. Over generations, people have indirectly shaped many of these plants through selective harvesting and management. Some have been semi-domesticated in home gardens or grown alongside cultivated crops. As the FAO explains, the term is typically used to describe all plant resources harvested for human consumption outside formal agricultural areas – from forests and savannahs to other natural or semi-natural landscapes.

Wild food resources under threat 🔗

Despite their immense value, wild plant resources are under serious pressure. Land degradation, deforestation, urbanisation, and the expansion of commercial agriculture are all shrinking the habitats where wild edible plants and crop wild relatives grow.

In some regions, the pressure on land has become so intense that wild food supplies have been virtually exhausted. When forests are cleared for farming or settlements, the wild plants that communities have relied on for generations disappear along with the trees. This is particularly devastating for food-insecure households who have no alternative sources of nutrition.

Scientific reviews highlight that over 70% of crop wild relative species are in urgent need of collection and conservation in gene banks, and more than 95% are insufficiently represented in existing collections. Climate change compounds the problem, altering the habitats where these species have evolved and potentially pushing them toward extinction before their genetic potential can even be studied.

Why conservation is non-negotiable 🔗

Losing wild varieties doesn’t just mean losing food sources for rural communities today. It means losing the genetic options we’ll need to adapt crops to the climate of tomorrow. If a new disease threatens global wheat supplies, or if rising temperatures make current rice varieties unviable in key growing regions, breeders will need to turn to wild relatives for solutions. If those relatives no longer exist, the options narrow dramatically.

Conservation efforts take two main forms. In situ conservation means protecting wild plants in their natural habitats – national parks, forest reserves, and designated genetic reserves. Ex situ conservation involves collecting seeds and genetic material and storing them in gene banks. Both approaches are essential. Gene banks like the Svalbard Global Seed Vault and the collections maintained by CGIAR centres around the world serve as insurance policies for global agriculture, but they currently hold only a fraction of the diversity that exists in the wild.

Connecting the dots: wild plants, agriculture, and nutrition 🔗

The importance of wild varieties and species sits at the intersection of three major global challenges: food security, nutritional adequacy, and climate adaptation.

On the food security front, crop wild relatives are the raw material for developing the next generation of high-performing crop varieties – ones that can withstand hotter temperatures, less predictable rainfall, and new pest pressures. Without them, the ability to keep improving crop performance plateaus.

On nutrition, wild edible plants directly fill gaps in human diets, particularly in developing regions. They provide vitamins, minerals, and proteins that staple crops alone cannot deliver. Encouraging the sustainable use and even the domestication of promising wild food plants could significantly improve dietary diversity and reduce malnutrition.

On climate adaptation, wild species that have survived and evolved in harsh natural environments carry genetic adaptations – to drought, salinity, extreme temperatures, and poor soils – that cultivated crops desperately need. Research initiatives like the BioDT project are now developing digital tools to speed up the identification and use of these valuable genetic resources in breeding programmes.

Looking ahead: what needs to happen 🔗

Protecting and utilising wild plant varieties requires action on several fronts. First, governments and international organisations must invest more in surveying and cataloguing wild edible plants and crop wild relatives, especially in biodiversity hotspots across Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. Much of this diversity remains undocumented.

Second, gene bank collections need to be expanded significantly. With only about 2-6% of global gene bank holdings consisting of crop wild relatives, there is enormous room for improvement. Third, plant breeding programmes must be better connected to these genetic resources. Advances in genomics and gene editing – such as CRISPR technology – are making it easier than ever to identify and transfer useful traits from wild species into cultivated crops, but these tools are only useful if the genetic material is available and accessible.

Finally, policies must support the sustainable harvesting and management of wild food plants at the community level. Traditional knowledge about which wild plants are edible, nutritious, and medicinally valuable is rapidly disappearing as younger generations move to cities. Preserving this knowledge is just as important as preserving the plants themselves.

What do you think? How can we better balance the drive for high-yield commercial agriculture with the need to conserve the wild plant diversity that makes future crop improvement possible? And in your region, are there wild edible plants that communities still rely on but that are at risk of disappearing?

References

1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5192947/
2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/crop-wild-relative
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution
4. https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/back-to-the-future-green-revolution
5. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11130-005-8616-0
6. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1008080508028
7. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7487116/
8. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10100605/
9. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainable-food-systems/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2023.1113771/full
10. https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/e2a9412c-89ca-4e07-bf19-499c8bdf730c/content
11. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2022.886162/full
12. https://biodt.eu/use-cases/crop-wild-relatives-and-genetic-resources-food-security