Reply to Brush et al.: Wake-up call for crop conservation science

We strongly concur with Brush et al. regarding the urgency for a new generation of studies but reject claims that our findings are unsupported and our comparisons false, a misperception that could delay adequate academic and policy responses. First, spurious or not, it is not our interpretation that we put to the test but that of influential scholars who, notwithstanding studies’ design and methodological differences, conclude that “there is increasing evidence that small-scale farmers throughout the world, and especially in areas of crop domestication and diversity, continue to maintain a diverse set of crop varieties” and “after thirty years of crop collection and research … the concept of genetic erosion remains more a presumption of what is likely to occur than a demonstrated fact”.