ABSTRACT
The effects of the green revolution in the late 1960s, though essential for human food supply, affected the natural habitat of many crop species, especially in the region of their origin (Bingham and Lupton, 1987; Borlaug, 1988). The introduction of modern semidwarf cultivars of wheat, which displaced wild relatives and landraces of wheat in West Asia and the Mediterranean regions, was an essential undertaking by governments and farmers (Dalrymple, 1986); denial of that opportunity would have been inhumane, for it would have surely resulted in widespread starvation and malnutrition in those regions due to reduced crop production. The timely conservation of the affected wheat landraces and their wild relatives was and is the logical alternative.
