Photo credit: The Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT

CGIAR News

At CGIAR, protecting plant health begins with safeguarding biodiversity and ensuring equitable access to plant genetic resources. Our approach emphasizes integrated, science-based solutions—spanning from conservation to innovation—ensuring a resilient, inclusive food system.  

Under CGIAR’s Sustainable Farming Program, plant health takes center stage through targeted efforts to reduce crop losses and contamination. The initiative is strengthening plant health systems by advancing diagnostics and surveillance to tackle pests, diseases, weeds, and harmful mycotoxins. By harnessing frontier technologies and investing in eco-friendly, integrated solutions, CGIAR is helping farmers monitor risks, predict outbreaks, and manage threats more sustainably.

The eleven CGIAR genebanks are custodians of the world’s most diverse publicly available crop collections. These resources—seeds, tubers, and other plant material—help researchers, breeders, and farmers develop solutions for a more resilient agriculture, providing a bulwark against mounting threats to food security. The new Genebanks Accelerator will supercharge this work, using technologies like computer vision, AI chatbots, and bioinformatics to help a wider range of users find the crop diversity they need.

Genebanks and breeding programs take great care to ensure that the plant material they distribute is free from pests and diseases. CGIAR has established Germplasm Health Units to lead this effort, centralising controls and serving as centers of excellence in plant health. The scientists—or seed doctors—in these units carry out hundreds of thousands of tests and treatments every year. They constantly develop improved diagnostic technologies and novel therapies and share their expertise with national partners around the world.

CIAT Genebank

At CGIAR, we recognize that protecting plant health is fundamental to achieving food and nutrition security, climate resilience, and sustainable development. That’s why we’re investing in integrated, science-based solutions that address plant health from multiple angles—combining innovation, partnerships, and a One Health perspective. 

See https://www.cgiar.org/news-events/news/international-day-of-plant-health-2025-healthy-plants-thriving-communities-sustainable-futures#:~:text=procedures%20and%20guidelines.-,International%20Day%20of%20Plant%20Health%202025,Plants%2C%20Thriving%20Communities%2C%20Sustainable%20Futures&text=On%20May%2012%2C%20CGIAR%20joins,protect%20them%20from%20increasing%20threats.