Braving perils from blood-sucking leeches to tigers and using transport as basic as elephants, scientists have journeyed like "Indiana Jones" to remote locations to collect wild cousins of crop seeds in a project to help tackle climate change.

A report released on Tuesday presented the results of a six-year quest to collect thousands of wild seeds that could play an important role in feeding a rising global population at a time when global warming is jeopardizing crop production.

Traveling by foot, four-wheel drive, canoe, horse and even elephant to reach remote corners of the world, more than 100 scientists secured 4,644 seed samples of 371 wild relatives — many endangered — of 28 globally important crops.