Effective Genetic Resources Conservation and Use
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/69419
This Bioversity International Initiative studies how to curb the loss of crop and tree biodiversity, and support systems that contribute to more diversity through:
1) Strategies, management and trait identification
2) Information services and seed supplies
3) Policies, institutions and monitoring
Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Payments for agrobiodiversity conservation services: An overview of Latin American experiences, lessons learned and upscaling challenges(Journal Article, 2020-06-17) Drucker, Adam G.; Ramírez, MarleniItem Advances in cryopreservation of in vitro-derived propagules: technologies and explant sources(Journal Article, 2021-01) Wang, Min-Rui; Lambardi, Maurizio; Engelmann, Florent; Panis, Bartholomeus; Volk, Gayle M.; Wang, Qiao-Chun; Pathirana, RanjithItem The future of smallholder farming in India: Some sustainability considerations(Journal Article, 2020-05) Bisht, Ishwari Singh; Rana, Jai Chand; Ahlawat, Sudhir PalThe biodiverse, predominantly crop-livestock mixed-farming in India is key to ensuring resilience to climate change and sustainability of smallholder farming agroecologies. Farmers traditionally grow diverse crops as polyculture, and agriculture is mainly organic/biodynamic with spirituality in food systems deeply ingrained. Job-driven out-migration of rural youths, the family labor force, and globalization of contemporary food choices under corporate industrial agriculture both adversely affect sustainability of traditional farming landscapes and compromise the nutrition and health of rural farming communities. Besides documenting information on general agri-food system policy inputs, our paper presents the results of an exploratory study of four crucial community-level initiatives conducted in four distinct agroecological landscapes of India, aimed at bringing sustainability to traditional farming and food systems. The driving force for fundamental change in agri-food system, and in society, is the question of sustainability. The organic and local food movements are but specific phases of the larger, more fundamental sustainable agri-food movement. While it is very critical to increase farmer livelihood, it is even more important to increase overall rural economy. It was found that four important interventions viz. linking organic agriculture to community-supported agriculture (CSA) initiatives; linking small-holder farming to school meal (MDM) programmes; enhanced market access and value chain development for local agricultural produce; and creation of employment opportunities at community level for rural youths and reducing over-dependence of rural population on agriculture as source of income can make traditional farming more profitable and sustainable. The transition to more sustainable methods of farming by selling the farm produce “locally” helps both consumers and farmers alike and is considered a future strength of smallholder Indian agriculture.Item Reviving the spiritual roots of agriculture for sustainability in farming and food systems: Lessons learned from peasant farming of Uttarakhand Hills in North-western India(Journal Article, 2020-05) Bisht, Ishwari Singh; Rana, Jai ChandThe modern industrial agriculture is in crisis. People are questioning the quality, safety and sustainability of our industrial food system. People are also questioning the wisdom of scientific agriculture as science has eventually succeeded in taking the sacred out of farming. However, the crisis brings with it opportunities for decisive, positive change. Based on our recent studies on agri-food system dynamics of traditional small-scale hill farming in Uttarakhand state of north-western India, we could document some community LEK-based innovations that can bring sustainability in food and farming systems. The lessons learned are presented here in this communication that are expected to help create a regenerative farming system mainly by reclaiming the spiritual roots of farming and food systems.Item Identification of sex-linked markers in the sexually cryptic coco de mer: are males and females produced in equal proportions?(Journal Article, 2020-02-01) Morgan, Emma J.; Kaiser-Bunbury, Christopher; Edwards, Peter J.; Scharmann, Mathias; Widmer, Alex; Fleischer-Dogley, Frauke; Kettle, Christopher J.Lodoicea maldivica (coco de mer) is a long-lived dioecious palm in which male and female plants are visually indistinguishable when immature, only becoming sexually dimorphic as adults, which in natural forest can take as much as 50 years. Most adult populations in the Seychelles exhibit biased sex ratios, but it is unknown whether this is due to different proportions of male and female plants being produced or to differential mortality. In this study, we developed sex-linked markers in Lodoicea using ddRAD sequencing, enabling us to reliably determine the gender of immature individuals. We screened 589 immature individuals to explore sex ratios across life stages in Lodoicea. The two sex-specific markers resulted in the amplification of male-specific bands (Lm123977 at 405 bp and Lm435135 at 130 bp). Our study of four sub-populations of Lodoicea on the islands of Praslin and Curieuse revealed that the two sexes were produced in approximately equal numbers, with no significant deviation from a 1:1 ratio before the adult stage. We conclude that sex in Lodoicea is genetically determined, suggesting that Lodoicea has a chromosomal sex determination system in which males are the heterogametic sex (XY) and females are homogametic (XX). We discuss the potential causes for observed biased sex ratios in adult populations, and the implications of our results for the life history, ecology and conservation management of Lodoicea.Item Rwanda: The Rubaya community gene bank(Book Chapter, 2015) Dusengemungu, Leonidas; Ndacyayisenga,Theophile; Otieno, Gloria Atieno; Ruzindana Nyirigira, Antoine; Rwihaniza Gapusi, JeanThe Rubaya community gene bank, located in the Rubaya sector of Gicumbi district in Northern Rwanda, is managed by the Kundisuka cooperative. It originated when a farmer by the name of Mpoberabanzi Silas and an agronomist working in the Rubaya sector recognized the need to preserve some of the genetic resources in the area that were being lost (e.g. several varieties of beans, peas, maize, wheat and sorghum). Implementation of the project was supported by the staff of the Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB) in cooperation with Bioversity International (Plate 18). The managing cooperative was created in September 2012 and consists of about ten members with Mpoberabanzi Silas as president. The community gene bank’s storage facilities were constructed locally with support from Vision 2020’s Umurenge Program and the Ministry of Local Government. Their main purpose is to store the region’s priority crops (maize, wheat, beans and Irish potatoes), but farmers are free to use the facilities to store and conserve other seeds and planting material. The community gene bank does not yet have a visible role in the community, for example, in seed production or participatory crop improvement, as it is still in its early stages. However, its members’ vision is to invest in seed multiplication to make good-quality seeds available to the local community and regional gene banks. This will transform the enterprise into a business-oriented farmer cooperative certified by RAB.Item Genetic diversity and core subset selection in ex situ seed collections of the banana crop wild relative Musa balbisiana(Journal Article, 2019-12) Bawin, Yves; Panis, Bartholomeus; Vanden Abeele, Samuel; Li, Zhiying; Sardos, Julie; Paofa, Janet; Ge, Xue-Jun; Mertens, Arne; Honnay, Olivier; Janssens, Steven B.Crop wild relatives (CWRs) play a key role in crop breeding by providing beneficial trait characteristics for improvement of related crops. CWRs are more efficiently used in breeding if the plant material is genetically characterized, but the diversity in CWR genetic resources has often poorly been assessed. Seven seed collections of Musa balbisiana, an important CWR of dessert and cooking bananas, originating from three natural populations, two feral populations and two ex situ field collections were retrieved and their genetic diversity was quantified using 18 microsatellite markers to select core subsets that conserve the maximum genetic diversity. The highest genetic diversity was observed in the seed collections from natural populations of Yunnan, a region that is part of M. balbisiana’s centre of origin. The seeds from the ex situ field collections were less genetically diverse, but contained unique variation with regards to the diversity in all seed collections. Seeds from feral populations displayed low genetic diversity. Core subsets that maximized genetic distance incorporated almost no seeds from the ex situ field collections. In contrast, core subsets that maximized allelic richness contained seeds from the ex situ field collections. We recommend the conservation and additional collection of seeds from natural populations, preferentially originating from the species’ region of origin, and from multiple individuals in one population. We also suggest that the number of seeds used for ex situ seed bank regeneration must be much higher for the seed collections from natural populations.Item Taller para los Coordinadores Nacionales del Protocolo de Nagoya y del Tratado Internacional en América Latina y el Caribe(Report, 2019) Ellis, David; Gullotta, Gaia; Halewood, Michael; Argumedo, Alejandro; Garforth, Kathryn; Toledo, AlvaroEl Taller de capacitación para los Coordinadores Nacionales en América Latina y el Caribe sobre la implementación del Protocolo de Nagoya del Convenio sobre la Diversidad Biológica (Protocolo de Nagoya) y del Tratado Internacional sobre los Recursos Fitogenéticos para la Alimentación y la Agricultura (Tratado Internacional) de forma que ambos se apoyen mutuamente se celebró del 25 al 28 de septiembre de 2018 en el Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP), Lima, Perú. La asistencia al taller fue de más de 60 participantes, incluidos los Coordinadores Nacionales del Protocolo de Nagoya y del Tratado Internacional de 16 países de América Latina y el Caribe. También asistieron representantes de las Secretarías del Tratado Internacional y del Convenio sobre la Diversidad Biológica, de la Federación Internacional de Semillas, representantes de organizaciones de agricultores y de pueblos indígenas, organizaciones de investigación agrícola nacionales e internacionales, así como expertos de la región que han trabajado durante décadas en políticas de acceso a recursos genéticos y participación en el reparto de beneficios derivados de su uso. Los objetivos del taller eran: 1) Fortalecer las relaciones entre los Coordinadores Nacionales de cada país y de la región; 2) Analizar los retos y las oportunidades para implementar el Tratado Internacional y el Protocolo de Nagoya de forma que se apoyen mutuamente y de forma que promuevan objetivos políticos complementarios, tales como la adaptación al cambio climático o la mejora de los medios de vida de los pueblos indígenas y de las comunidades locales; 3) Dotar a los participantes de herramientas útiles para abordar situaciones de la vida real en las que es importante la implementación de los dos instrumentos de forma que se apoyen mutuamente; 4) Identificar modos de apoyar a los países para que puedan implementar el Tratado Internacional y el Protocolo de Nagoya de forma que se apoyen mutuamente. English version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10568/106608Item Scaling community seedbanks and farmer seed enterprises in East and Southern Africa: Workshop Highlights, 2-4 October 2019, Entebbe, Uganda(Report, 2020) Adokorach, Joyce; Vernooy, Ronnie; Kakeeto, RonaldThe Scaling Community Seed Banks and Farmer Seed Enterprises in East and Southern Africa workshop was held in Entebbe, Uganda on 2-4 October 2019, to share experiences about community seed bank management and to develop national pilot scaling proposals. The workshop was organized under the umbrella of the Resilient Seed Systems for Climate Change Adaptation and Sustainable Livelihoods in East Africa project. Participants from Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe discussed strengthening their community seed banks’ capacity development on topics such as documentation and record keeping, data management and sharing, seed production, entrepreneurship, development of a portal and/or App for online distribution of seed, advocacy and policy development, gender action learning, and policy support for community seed banks and farmer seed enterprises. Workshop presentations showcased the status of the community seed banks in Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe; and the status of farmer seed enterprises in Uganda and Zimbabwe. Thematic presentations addressed policy issues, gender, the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), and the development of a seed knowledge/service hub. Presentations on pratical field experiences from Uganda were made (including demonstrations of seed collections) by the Soroti Community Seed Bank, and the Joy and Family demonstration farm in Ngoma, Kiziba, Kagano-Sheema. The workshop resulted in the production of three pilot scaling proposals for community seed bank/farmer seed enterprises in Kenya (led by the Seed Savers Network), Uganda (led by NARO) and Zambia (led by the Zambia Agriculture Research Institute, ZARI), and supported by the Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute (EBI) and the Community Technology Development Trust (CTDT) Uganda.Item Report from the banana collecting mission to the Province of West New Britain, Papua New Guinea from September 30th to October 12th, 2019.(Report, 2019) Sardos, J.; Paofa, J.; Sachter-Smith, Gabriel L.; Togabalaguguwa, E.; Hribova, E.; Houwe, Ines van den; Roux, N.Item Report from the banana collecting mission to Samoa from July 22nd to August 2nd, 2019(Report, 2019) Sardos, J.; Sachter-Smith, Gabriel L.; Shandil, A.; Houwe, Ines van den; Hribova, E.; Matalavea, P.; Vaai, A.; Iosefa, T.; Hunter, D.T.; Roux, N.Item Report from the banana collecting mission to Rarotonga and Aitutaki, Cook Islands(Report, 2019) Sardos, J.; Sachter-Smith, Gabriel L.; Ghanem, Michel Edmond; Hribova, E.; Houwe, Ines van den; Roux, N.; Wigmore, W.Item Crowdsourcing vegetables for farmers’ livelihood improvement: a novel collaborative pilot in Uganda. Resilient seed systems for climate change adaptation and sustainable livelihoods in the East Africa sub-region project progress report(Report, 2019) Recha, Tobias; Mubiru, Daudi; Vernooy, Ronnie; Kabakoyo, ElizabethThe Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT is implementing a Dutch-supported project entitled: Resilient seed systems for climate change adaptation and sustainable livelihoods in the East Africa sub-region. This work aims to boost timely and affordable access to good-quality seed for a portfolio of crops / varieties for millions of women and men farmers’ and their communities across East Africa. East West Seed (EWS) and the Alliance, in collaboration with the Wageningen Center for Development Innovation, the World Vegetable Centre and National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO)-Uganda, are combining the EWS farmer training approach and the Alliance’s crowdsourcing methodology in a small pilot initiative on vegetables in Uganda. The targeted portfolio of vegetables include traditional (e.g. green leafy vegetables) and modern ones (e.g. tomato, onion, sweet pepper, cabbage, pumpkin) based on farmers’ interests and marketing opportunities, sourced from EWS, the World Vegetable Centre and farmers’ own gardens. The main objective is to strengthen farmers’ capacity to make better use of crop (vegetable) diversity for multiple livelihood purposes. Based on a situational analysis in the Hoima area, 13 farmers were selected to take part in the pilot. They received training in the various aspects of vegetable management from the EWS Knowledge Transfer team in Uganda. The ultimate aim is scale the pilot to about 1,000 farmers. The main research questions for this initiative are: • What are the promising vegetable varieties that smallholder farmers could integrate in their production system? • How do social and gender variables influence crop/variety selection? • What organizational form can best support the testing and adoption of vegetable new species and varieties?Item Resilient seed systems for climate change adaptation and sustainable livelihoods in the East Africa sub-region: Report of training workshop, Addis Ababa Ethiopia, 17-21 September 2019(Report, 2019) Recha, Tobias; Halewood, Michael; Fadda, Carlo; Mushita, Andrew; Vernooy, Ronnie; Kidane, Yosef Gebrehawaryat; Otieno, Gloria AtienoBioversity International is implementing a Dutch-supported project entitled: Resilient seed systems for climate change adaptation and sustainable livelihoods in the East Africa sub-region. This work aims to boost timely and affordable access to good-quality seed for a portfolio of crops / varieties for millions of women and men farmers’ and their communities across east Africa. A first project training: i) contextualized farmer varietal selection, ii) provided practical demonstrations of tools for climate-change analysis, iii) introduced policy issues associated with managing crop diversity, iv) outlined characterization and evaluation of genetic resources, and v) articulated associated gender issues, and issues related to disseminating elite materials. The training concluded with a contextualizing field trip. In the workshop evaluation, 98% participants declared their overall satisfaction level to be high (74%) or medium (24%), indicating the training furnished them with good ideas for networking and using the tools and methods they learned about.Item User-centred design of a digital advisory service: enhancing public agricultural extension for sustainable intensification in Tanzania(Journal Article, 2021-11-02) Ortíz Crespo, Berta; Steinke, Jonathan; Quirós, Carlos F.; Gevel, Jeske M.J, van de; Daudi, Happy; Mgimiloko, Majuto Gaspar; Etten, Jacob vanSustainable intensification (SI) is promoted as a rural development paradigm for sub-Saharan Africa. Achieving SI requires smallholder farmers to have access to information that is context-specific, increases their decision-making capacities, and adapts to changing environments. Current extension services often struggle to address these needs. New mobile phone-based services can help. In order to enhance the public extension service in Tanzania, we created a digital service that addresses smallholder farmers’ different information needs for implementing SI. Using a co-design methodology – User-Centered Design – we elicited feedback from farmers and extension agents in Tanzania to create a new digital information service, called Ushauri. This automated hotline gives farmers access to a set of pre-recorded messages. Additionally, farmers can ask questions in a mailbox. Extension agents then listen to these questions through an online platform, where they record and send replies via automated push-calls. A test with 97 farmers in Tanzania showed that farmers actively engaged with the service to access agricultural advice. Extension agents were able to answer questions with reduced workload compared to conventional communication channels. This study illustrates how User-Centered Design can be used to develop information services for complex and resource-restricted smallholder farming contexts.Item «Cuando yo ya no pueda hacerlo, nadie lo haráa»: La conservación de la agrobiodiversidad en tiempos de migración(Brief, 2018) Baldinelli, M.G.This research explores the connections between agrobiodiversity conservation and indigenous farmers’ rural-urban migration in the Altiplano Norte of Bolivia. Two trends are identified and analysed: agronomic simplification, as part of a process of deagrarianisation; and agrobiodiversity reinvention, taking shape in a period in which the indigenous roots of Bolivia, native crops and traditional dishes experience a revival in discourse and food practices. Temporary and return migrants are important characters in this process, as innovators and crucial allies for urban-based stakeholders promoting agrobiodiversity conservation.Item El nuevo diplomado “El Enfoque Territorios Sostenibles Adaptados al Clima”: una alianza para el escalamiento de experiencias y prácticas de adaptación en el Corredor Seco de Guatemala(Brief, 2019-12-20) Bouroncle, Claudia; Vernooy, Ronnie; Sandoval, Víctor; García, José RamiroEsta info note presenta una síntesis del nuevo diplomado “El Enfoque Territorios Sostenibles Adaptados al Clima (TeSAC) en el Corredor Seco del Oriente de Guatemala”, desarrollado entre septiembre y diciembre de 2019; así como recomendaciones para su futuro desarrollo. El diplomado se llevó a cabo en 2019 en el Centro Universitario de Oriente (CUNORI), una unidad académica de la Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala en la ciudad de Chiquimula. En su primera edición, 32 profesionales de 14 organizaciones del Corredor Seco del país adquirieron e intercambiaron conocimientos para la adaptación al cambio climático de la agricultura y manejo de recursos naturales.Item MaxEnt modelling for predicting the potential distribution of a near threatened rosewood species (Dalbergia cultrata Graham ex Benth)(Journal Article, 2019-12) Liu, Y.; Huang, P.; Lin, F.; Yang, W.; Gaisberger, H.; Kettle, Christopher J.; Zheng, Y.Item Le renforcement des capacités nationales pour la mise en œuvre du Traité international sur les ressources phytogénétiques pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture : Points saillants du projetectos del Tratado(Brief, 2019) Vernooy, RonnieCette note présente les points saillants du projet « Le renforcement des capacités nationales pour la mise en œuvre du Traité international sur les ressources phytogénétiques pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture », qui a été coordonné par Bioversity dans le cadre du Programme commun de renforcement des capacités des pays en développement de l’Organisation des Nations Unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture/Secrétariat du Traité/Bioversity International pour la mise en œuvre du Traité et son Système multilatéral (SML). Le projet, qui s'est déroulé de 2012 à 2016, visait à : promouvoir la participation des pays au système multilatéral d'accès et de partage des avantages du Traité ; identifier les moyens d'améliorer l'accès des pays aux ressources phytogénétiques pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture ; et explorer les possibilités permettant de tirer parti d'autres aspects du Traité.Item Capacity Building Workshop on Genetic Resources for CGIAR Scientists and Partners from Near East and Neighbouring Countries, 17 - 20 September 2018, ICARDA, Beirut, Lebanon(Report, 2019) CGIAR Genebank PlatformIn September 2018, the CGIAR Genebank Platform Policy Module joined the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) and the Association of Agricultural Research Institutions in the Near East and North Africa (AARINENA) to organize a capacity-building workshop on genetic resource policies for CGIAR scientists and partners from Near East and neighbouring countries. The workshop was held from 17 - 20 September 2018, hosted by ICARDA, Beirut, Lebanon. This event brought together 20 staff members from 6 CGIAR Centres (including genebank managers and technical staff, plant breeders, senior scientists, legal counselor and genetic resources policy specialists), 16 representatives of national agricultural research organizations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen, and representatives of the Secretariats of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the coordination team of the Global Project on Access and Benefit Sharing of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The workshop was designed to increase participants’ understanding of the CGIAR Centres’ obligations vis-à-vis international treaties and conventions dealing with access and benefit-sharing, and how these international instruments influence the day-to-day management of scientists, researchers and support staff involved in the management of plant germplasm collections and plant breeding prorgammes at national and international levels. The workshop included participatory analyses of practical case studies and hypothetical scenarios where the interface between the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing and the ITPGRFA (Plant Treaty) can raise legal and procedural issues. It also addressed improving genebank operations and communications and as such, enhancing availability and accessibility of ex situ collections and promoting farmers’ rights.