Protecting crops from biopiracy is good for farmers and the future of food

Since the 1970s, the number of rice varieties in India has plummeted from roughly 100,000 to 7,000. The massive drop is largely due to the rise of high-yield crops born from the Green Revolution, which helped relieve a strained food supply. However, the extinct rice varieties don’t just signify a loss of heritage and cultural identity in Indian villages – each lost variety is a small defeat in the battle to preserve biodiversity and genetic variation. The ecologist Dr Debal Deb has a creative solution to his country’s vanishing rice problem: a massive seed bank that houses and preserves rare indigenous rice before it disappears.