Ortiz Rios, Rodomiro Octavio
- Department of Plant Breeding, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Abstract
Food insecurity and poor diets undermine human health, livelihoods, and aspirations. Climate change further exacerbates the problem of achieving zero hunger. Promoting the production of a diverse portfolio of nutrient-dense, climate-resilient crops enables food supply for healthy diets in the coming years and decades. Many are underutilized even though they are considered opportunity crops, with an unrealized potential to improve food security and dietary quality amid climate change. Limited access to quality seed for these crops is a major bottleneck in their supply, as the current policy environment does not support farmers in broadening their portfolio with these crops. This paper identifies three key challenges that should be addressed to enable farmers to access quality seed of opportunity crops at scale. These are to make the diversity of opportunity crops (i) a priority for policy (ii) available for evaluation and breeding, and (iii) accessible to farm-ers, especially women and other disadvantaged groups. Six policy actions are recommended to address these challenges, which, if implemented, are likely to have both short- and long-term impacts in increasing farmers' access to quality seeds of opportunity crops. Adopting these policy actions will help mainstream opportunity crops into seed systems as part of a broader strategy to diversify food systems from seed to plate
Keywords
Neglected and underutilized species; Opportunity crops; Seed delivery; Climate change; Nutrition; Dietary diversity; Seed policy; Genetic resources; SDG2
Published in
Food Security
2026
SLU Authors
Global goals (SDG)
SDG1 No poverty
SDG2 Zero hunger
UKÄ Subject classification
Agricultural Science
Horticulture
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-026-01661-w
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/146543