The concept of Vavilov’s Centres of Origin occupies a foundational place in sustainability science because it links agricultural biodiversity, evolutionary biology, and long-term food security within a single explanatory framework. Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov proposed that the greatest genetic diversity of a cultivated plant is found in the geographical region where it was first domesticated. These centres, identified through extensive field expeditions and comparative studies of crops and their wild relatives, illuminate patterns of genetic diversity and provide crucial insights into the evolutionary trajectories of cultivated plant species. A critical assessment of their significance reveals both their enduring value and their limitations in light of contemporary scientific advances. One of the most important contributions of Vavilov’s Centres of Origin is their role in explaining the spatial distribution of genetic diversity. Regions such as the Fertile Crescent, Mesoamerica, the Andean region, and parts of South and East Asia were identified as hotspots where crops like wheat, maize, potato, and rice exhibit remarkable variation. This diversity reflects long periods of natural selection, human selection, and environmental heterogeneity. From a sustainability perspective, such genetic richness is not merely of academic interest; it constitutes a vital resource for crop improvement, resilience to pests and diseases, and adaptation to climate change. By demonstrating that genetic diversity is unevenly distributed across the globe, Vavilov’s framework challenged simplistic views of crops as uniform entities and emphasized the ecological and cultural embeddedness of agriculture. Vavilov’s theory also provides a powerful lens for tracing evolutionary trajectories of cultivated plants. Domestication is an evolutionary process involving selection for desirable traits such as larger seeds, reduced shattering, or palatability. By studying crops in their centres of origin alongside their wild progenitors, researchers can reconstruct pathways of domestication and diversification. For example, the diversity of wheat species in the Near East reveals multiple domestication events and hybridization processes, highlighting evolution as a dynamic and non-linear phenomenon. This evolutionary perspective aligns closely with sustainability science, which seeks to understand long-term system dynamics rather than