In the Intensive Care Unit: The Race to Save a Wild Bean
At the Genetic Resources Unit of the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, researchers are working to conserve a wild bean species at risk of extinction that is extremely difficult to propagate. Under controlled conditions, every seed is almost a miracle.
- food security
- crops
- nutrition
In the Intensive Care Unit: The Race to Save a Wild Bean
At the Genetic Resources Unit of the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, researchers are working to conserve a wild bean species at risk of extinction that is extremely difficult to propagate. Under controlled conditions, every seed is almost a miracle.
On December 11, 2003, in San Isidro de El General, south of San José, Costa Rica, scientist Daniel Debouck was on one of his many expeditions to find different varieties of beans. In a humid mountainous area, at an altitude of over 1,000 meters amid mist, vines, and ferns, he discovered a new species of wild bean.
At first glance, it looked like an ordinary bean. To many, just another one in the midst of so much forest. Debouck, however, who had spent years traveling through the region in search of wild relatives of the bean and had a trained eye for finding a needle in a haystack, stopped and collected some seeds of Phaseolus hygrophilus.
As the years passed, the same path Debouck once traveled no longer offered the same view. The lands where this wild bean once grew began to change; in its place, coffee plantations took over, making the hygrophilus increasingly difficult to find.
Some time later, Phaseolus hygrophilus began to be recognized as an endangered species.