Geneflow
- 2004 Special Section
A publication about agricultural biodiversity
Geneflow Special Section
Young boy helping the family's wheat harvest. Lesotho
The stories in the following pages treat a wide range of subjects, from ex situ conservation technologies to the cultural importance of particular crops. However, a common thread connects them all: the Global Crop Diversity ...
Introduction to the Global Crop Diversity Trust
His Excellency Mr. Tau'ili'ili Uili Meredith, Ambassador of Samoa to Italy signs the international agreement to establish the Global Crop Diversity Trust as an independent international fund. Samoa is one of the founder governments of the Trust.
The world's collections of crop diversity underpin food security and have a vital role to play in poverty eradication and environmental renewal. Today, there are nearly 1500 such collections around the world, 65% of them in ...
An interview with the Chief Executive of the Global Crop Diversity Trust
Genebanks around the world are soon to enter a new era of stable and secure funding. The Global Crop Diversity Trust, a permanent fund for crop diversity conservation, is rapidly becoming a reality. Unlike other conservation...
An introduction to genebanks
A crop genebank is a facility for conserving and distributing the diversity of crop varieties and their wild relatives. Genebanks range from massive collections stored in elaborate buildings to a simple field of a few labeled ...
Linking in situ and ex situ conservation through home gardens
he diversity of peppers grown in Guatemalan home gardens rivals that of the national collection
An important resource for both in situ and ex situ conservation may be closer than you think. Home gardens play a significant role in the supply of food, home remedies and a range of handy products to people in rural areas...
International treaty comes into force
The International Treaty recognizes the enormous contribution that farmers and their communities have made and continue to make to the conservation and development of crop diversity
After seven long and often arduous years of negotiations, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture came into force on 29 June 2004. At its centrepiece is a multilateral system for the...
CIMMYT's genebank helps restore wheat diversity to farmers' fields
Rising genetic diversity in CIMMYT wheats compared to landraces
Modern plant breeding is sometimes depicted as a coin with two faces. While it can provide solutions to the problems of farmers throughout the world, plant breeding has also been cited as the enemy of crop diversity. The...
The conservation strategies
Given that there are nearly 1500 genebanks around the world, the majority of which could undoubtedly argue their importance and neediness, a mechanism is needed for determining just how the Global Crop Diversity Trust will...
Linking farmers and genebanks in Mali
The Institute of Rural Economy is working with farmers to help them improve their sorghum varieties.
Farmers and government researchers are coming together in Mali to conserve and cultivate the nation's crop diversity. By involving farmers in a variety of research projects, Mali is ensuring that the conservation and use of...
How wild rice species help their cultivated cousins
Dr Brar examines an example of the wild species Oryza rufipogon, which donated tolerance to acid sulfate soils to IRRI's popular, high-yielding variety IR64, as IRRI researcher Joie Ramos and Kofi Bimpong, a Master's scholar from Ghana, look on.
Outbreaks of grassy stunt virus once ruined rice harvests and brought hardship to poor farmers in South and Southeast Asia. Today, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and its national partners are developing...
Can cultural practices endanger crop diversity?
Rusinga is the second largest island in Lake Victoria.
On Rusinga Island in Kenya, farmers grow a variety of sorghum known as "Gopari." Though it possesses highly desirable traits that provide a measure of security against the erratic weather patterns of the...
The breadfruit mutiny
Breadfruit is one of the most versatile of the fruits grown in the tropics.
One of the most famous sea ventures of the 18th century sought not silver and gold but a cheap source of food for plantation slaves in the Caribbean. The HMS Bounty, renowned for its infamous mutiny, had a simple goal when it ...
Cryopreservation creates new hope for banana conservation
A man shows off his small urban banana plantation. Kingston, Jamaica.
Since most bananas do not produce seed, the conservation of this very important crop has always been a challenge. These days, the technology of cryopreservation is being used to meet that challenge. Cryopreservation uses liquid...
Sharing bean genes in Latin America
Farmers' varieties of common bean, collected at Risalda in Colombia.
The exchange of plant genetic resources between crop diversity collections across national borders has long been seen as vital to the creation of better food crops and the fight against rural poverty around the world. A recent...
Cowpea's importance keeps it safe in Malawi
Farmers select cowpea landraces using criteria such as taste, habit, productivity, time taken to mature etc.
A particular type of cowpea landrace, Vigna unguiculata, is so central to the livelihoods of rural communities in the Chikwawa district of Malawi that its continued cultivation is almost guaranteed, at least for the foreseeable...
A new initiative to unlock genetic diversity in crops for the resource-poor
Most farmers in the developing world are far less well equipped to cope with the multiple challenges they face than their counterparts in industrialized countries. Drought, pest and disease infestations and low soil fertility...
The cultural roles of yams
Dagomba farmers proudly display their yams.
When a child is born into the Dagomba society of northern Ghana, a meal of yam and other ingredients is prepared for relatives and the midwife who delivers the baby. The meal includes four yam tubers for a girl, three for a boy...
Banking on the tree of life
The International Coconut Genebank for Africa and Indian Ocean, Cote d'Ivoire.
Many people who depend on the coconut call it the tree of life because it supplies them with more than 100 different products including food and drink, fodder for livestock, fibre and building materials. Coconut is believed to...
Combing Turkmenistan for plant resources
Collecting forage and rangeland species in Turkmenistan
Scientists have been combing the remote corners of Central Asia and the Caucasus in search of plants that can help to ensure the future of agriculture in the region and around the world. The team of plant collectors recently...
