Crop Diversity: Neolithic Foundations for Agriculture's Future Adaptation to Climate Change

The onset of a period of global cooling, the Younger Dryas, may have reduced food supplies precisely when populations were concentrated above carrying capacity, thus catalyzing agricultural efforts (2). Through selection, different types of maize were created: for eating fresh, roasting, flour, popping, beer making, livestock feed, medicinal purposes, ornamental purposes, religious purposes, and now for fuel for cars. It seeks to build a nondepleting endowment that will generate sufficient income annually to underpin the conservation of all crop diversity, and through this create a rational, efficient, effective, and sustainable global system to ensure both conservation and availability of crop diversity.