Video: Heat and Drought Wheat Improvement Consortium

This week, the world’s eyes are upon global leaders gathered in Madrid for COP25 to negotiate collective action to slow the devastating impacts of climate change.

According to the UN, the world is heading for a 3.2 degrees Celsius global temperature rise over pre-industrial levels, leading to a host of destructive climate impacts including hotter and drier environments and more extreme weather events. Under these more extreme conditions, the world’s staple food crops are under threat.

A new video highlights the work of the Heat and Drought Wheat Improvement Network (HeDWIC), a global research and capacity building network under the Wheat Initiative, that harnesses the latest technologies in crop physiology, genetics and breeding to help create new climate-resilient wheat varieties. With the help of collaborators and supporters from around the world,  HeDWIC takes wheat research from the theoretical to the practical by incorporating the best science into real-life breeding scenarios.