Plant breeding and diversity: A troubled relationship?

Plant breeding collects, induces and rearranges genetic diversity followed by selection. Breeding may contribute to diversity in farmers’ fields or significantly reduce it. History has numerous examples of both. This paper intends to shed some light on the questions: how will current developments in technology and policy affect crop genetic diversity? Are we heading for a new bottleneck—either a molecular or a policy bottleneck, or a combination of both? Or could the future become more diverse? The authors look at the relationship between breeding, policies, and crop genetic diversity in farming systems with a birds-eye view.