North America’s agricultural and natural landscapes are vital to feeding humanity—they are home to many populations of important food plants and their wild relatives.

Urbanization, lack of contact with the natural world, and growing up removed from agriculture has contributed to a void of knowledge relating to food and food production, along with a phenomenon known as plant blindness.

Crop wild relatives—the plant species closely related to agricultural crops—are valuable
genetic resources used by plant breeders to increase pest and disease resistance, stress

Of the myriad gifts plants provide to humanity, food is among the most visible, as everyone needs to eat, every single day.

Indigenous communities rely extensively on plants for food, shelter, and medicine. It is still unknown, however, to what degree their survival is jeopardized by the loss of either plant species or

Successful programs of crop wild relative (CWR) exploration, conservation, and utilization are ultimately dependent on sustained public prioritization and support, which in turn requires public awareness and engagement.

In this issue BGCI considers how to develop education programmes from scratch, a curse and blessing that can be infrequently bestowed on botanic garden educators in gardens with well-established public engagement offers.