Agricultural development and wheat breeding in the 20th Century

Summary

Tributes to wheat and its contribution to agriculture and humanity over the centuries can be found on carvings on utensils, pictographs from early civilizations, and in many religious writings. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations selected as their emblem a spike of wheat rising above the Latin inscription Fiat Panis (‘Let there be bread’).

With the development of high yield cultivars which respond to improved management practices, wheat production has increased over 100million metric tons (mmt) per decade since the 1960s.Many examples can be cited to support the importance of genetic diversity and the role it has played in the improvement of wheat. Historically, the worldwide community of breeders have freely shared their genetic materials and depended on others for the development of contemporary cultivars. Any constraints which reduce the availability of genetic resources must be viewed with alarm. Genetic erosion, collection, preserving and maintaining the genetic integrity of existing germplasm collections, and factors which influence the free exchange of germplasm can all have a detrimental impact on future wheat improvement. Breeders and other public and private decision makers all must share a responsibility and an obligation to insure that future breeders will have the necessary genetic variability if wheat is going to continue to be a major contributor to world food production. Based on expected population growth and an increasing preference for wheat products, especially in developing countries, wheat will be even more important in the next century if an increasingly hungry population is to be fed.