Issues in agricultural biodiversity

Farmers have developed a range of agricultural practices to sustainably use and maintain a wide diversity of crop species in many parts of the world. This book documents good practices innovated by farmers and collects key reviews on good practices from global experts. 

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This book addresses the complexities of defining what farmers’ varieties are and how they differ from one another and from other varieties. It charts the evolution of the ‘farmers’ rights’ concept, and examines the policy challenges linked to the absence of fixed taxonomic or legal definitions of farmers’ varieties.

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Community seed banks first appeared towards the end of the 1980s, established with the support of international and national non-governmental organizations. This book is the first to provide a global review of their development and includes a wide range of case studies.

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This book explores the current state of knowledge on the role of agricultural biodiversity in improving nutrition and food security, and identifies research and implementation gaps that need to be addressed to promote the better use of agricultural biodiversity in food-based approaches that tackle malnutrition and food security.

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The conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in the environments where this diversity originated or is being used, are issues which are high on the policy agenda. This book is the first to set out a clear overview of community biodiversity management as an approach to meet social, economic and environmental change.

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As crops have moved around the world, and agricultural innovation and production systems have expanded, so too has the scope and coverage of shared pools of plant genetic resources. This book addresses how the collective pooling and management of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture can be supported through laws regulating access to genetic resources and  benefit-sharing. It focuses in particular on the extent to which the international Plant Treaty supports the continued evolution of the global crop commons.

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The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture is a pivotal piece of recent legislation, providing a route map for the use of such resources for sustainable agriculture and food security. This book explains clearly the different interests and views at stake among all players in the global food chain. Published with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and Bioversity International.

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Crop Wild Relatives: A Manual of In situ Conservation captures the important experiences of countries participating in this work - Armenia, Bolivia, Madagascar, Sri Lanka and Uzbekistan - and provides practical, relevant information and guidance for the scaling-up of actions targeting CWR conservation around the world.

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The purpose of The Economics of Managing Crop Diversity On-farm: Case Studies from the Genetic Resources Policy Initiative is to assess a variety of economic issues as they relate to agricultural biodiversity and show how addressing these issues can assist in agricultural biodiversity policymaking.

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