Stress resilience in crop plants : strategic thinking to address local food production problems

Abstract

There are many ways to assess or define the stress resilience of crop production, but ultimately the resilience of systems (and communities), i.e., an ability to survive and prosper, is driven by profitability. Here we review challenges for those who seek to bring about beneficial change in practice or policy as we translate novel crop science research findings into impacts on the food supply chain. While advances in plant and crop science are relevant to this challenge, the context of application is crucial here and this will mean that many other considerations, discussed below, will potentially moderate the impact on crop growth and yield of what could be the introduction of very significant breakthroughs in genetic gain. This paper considers opportunities for plant scientists seeking to address the world’s growing food security challenge by exploiting new understanding of the basis of crop stress resilience. Ultimately the local challenge is to increase the resilience of cropping systems and rural communities