Giving Compass' Take:

· With more than a third of the Earth's plants dwindling to extinction, Tim Radford explains that this affects the future of food security.

· What can donors do to help support food security in the future? 

· Here are three ways investors can help build a better food future. 

Botanists have made a new census of terrestrial plants – only to find that with nearly 40 per cent of them rare, or extremely rare, this may put food at risk.

And a second team of researchers, in a separate study, has established that some of these rare or vanishing species could include the wild relatives of some of the planet’s most popular vegetables.

The two studies matter. The first underlines yet another reason for new and determined conservation strategies to preserve the extraordinary natural variety and richness of life – the shorthand word that scientists use is biodiversity – already under pressure from the explosion in human numbers, the destruction of natural habitats and the looming catastrophe of climate change driven by rapidly rising global temperatures.

And the second study is simply a matter of the next lunch or dinner: many rare plants are survivors with the resources to adapt to change. In a fast-changing world, crop breeders may need to go back to the wild relatives to look for the genes that will keep the commercial carrots, courgettes, pumpkins and chilli peppers on the grocery shelves.

Read the full article about the future of food security by Tim Radford at Eco-Business.