In such places, tens of thousands of varieties of rice, potato, maize, or other food staples are still grown and used by local people. Centres of diversity are the basis not only for food security, but also for cultural traditions. In particular, wild plants and local crop varieties risk acquiring the GE traits, giving rise to strains of plants with a fitness advantage over their neighbours. This could severely disrupt local ecosystems.
Diversity represents the world's biological and cultural heritage.
It is also the biological mechanism that allows us to cope with changing environmental conditions, ensuring food security in the long term. In order to overcome new epidemics of pests and diseases or to adapt a crop to changing climatic conditions, farmers and plant breeders need a broad genetic base of their crop plants. This may include varieties that are not necessarily commercially interesting or high yielding, yet confer resistance to biological stress in less than ideal conditions. The Green Revolution with its uniform hybrid varieties and the associated social and economic changes has been a major cause of the decline of crop diversity. The introduction of GE plants intensifies this move toward crop uniformity.