The world produces enough food for everyone, but not everyone has enough food.
Anti-hunger campaign ‘If’ has launched a catchy and pleasing video that tackles a an important topic, and launches a call for the G8 countries to end global hunger with decisive actions.
Posted in Human health, Livelihoods, Poverty, Uncategorized
Photo credit: IITA
The Agfax: Reporting Science in Africa website is an interesting place to explore and learn what is happening in the agricultural research and science communities of Africa. The format provided by Agfax is usually an interview/audio file that one can choose to listen to directly on the internet, or download on to your PC to listen to at a later time. Interviews aren’t very long, usually no more than 10 minutes, and each interview has an accompanying document.
Their latest interview focuses on Beatrice Aighewi and Danny Coyne, two researchers who have been working with yam farmers in Nigeria, they discuss how the technique works and the benefits it offers to yam farmers in West Africa. Click here to listen to the interview.
Nature | News & Views
Nature Volume: 491, Pages: 675–677
Date published: (29 November 2012) DOI: doi:10.1038/nature11756
An analysis of the physiological vulnerability of different trees to drought shows that forests around the globe are at equally high risk of succumbing to increases in drought conditions.
The full-text access to this article is restricted to the Nature subscribers
Posted in Climate change, Forestry, Genetic resources
Over the next decades, agricultural production practices will change significantly and become more sustainable while they also respond to the need to contribute to reducing malnutrition and hunger and meeting the challenges of climate change. The enhanced use of agricultural biodiversity will play an essential role in this process, providing improved adaptability and resilience in agro-ecosystems. Plant genetic resources, a major component of agricultural biodiversity, play a key role in improving agricultural production and productivity. They are also essential to coping with climate change. As a result of climate change, increased efforts will be needed to conserve the diversity of crops and their wild relatives, and both in situ and ex situ conservation strategies will have to be adapted to meet changing environmental conditions and the need to secure biodiversity threatened by changing climate and altered production practices. Improved use of plant genetic resources will be essential, and this is likely to require increased national and international movements of resources to ensure that adapted germplasm is available to meet changing production environments. Greater emphasis will also need to be placed on evaluation for resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses and on properties such as adaptability, plasticity, and resilience, which can help maintain productivity under changing environmental conditions.
Authors: Hodgkins, T.; Bordoni, P.
Journal of Crop Improvement. Volume 26, Issue 3, 2012
Read the full-text paper here.
Photo credit: thaddselden
The Bioversity Research Fellows Gallery is now available on the Bioversity website.
It highlights the research that different fellows have carried out in collaboration with Bioversity. The profiles of the fellows are enriched with links to their publications and multimedia (interviews and photo stories). There is also a page with many of the fellows Bioversity scientists’ have co-supervised or sponsored since 1993. One can search by different criteria like country, name or fellowship scheme.
Click here to see the gallery and learn about the various fellowships that Bioversity offers.
Photo credit: IITA.
Posted in Biodiversity, Genetic resources, Research | Tags: research fellows, science
Much of the worlds’ annual harvest loss to pests and diseases occurs as a consequence of crops grown in monocultures, or cultivated varieties with uniform resistance. This uniform resistance is met by the continuing evolution of new races of pests and pathogens that are able to overcome resistance genes introduced by modern breeding, creating the phenomenon of boom and bust cycles. One of the few assets available to small-scale farmers in developing countries to reduce pests and diseases damage is their local crop varietal diversity, together with the knowledge to manage and deploy this diversity appropriately. Local crop varietal diversity of banana and plantain (Musa spp.) and common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) was measured at the community and household levels within farmers’ fields in four agro-ecological areas of Uganda. Resistance of traditional and modern varieties of P. vulgaris to anthracnose, angular leaf spot, and bean fly and of traditional and modern varieties of Musa spp. to black sigatoka, banana weevils and nematodes was assessed from participatory diagnostics of farmer knowledge and cross-site on-farm and on-station trials. By performing cross-site on-farm experiments, it was possible to identify traditional varieties with higher resistance to pest and diseases when grown outside their home sites. Increased diversity of crop varieties, measured by number of varieties (richness) and their evenness of distribution, corresponded to a decrease in the average damage levels across sites and to a reduction of variance of disease damage. In sites with higher disease incidence, households with higher levels of diversity in their production systems had less damage to their standing crop in the field compared to sites with lower disease incidence. The results support what might be expected of a risk-minimizing strategy for use of diversity to reduce pest and disease damage.
Read the full paper here.
Citation: J.W. Mulumba, R. Nankya, J. Adokorach, C. Kiwuka, C. Fadda, P. De Santis, D.I. Jarvis (2012) A risk-minimizing argument for traditional crop varietal diversity use to reduce pest and disease damage in agricultural ecosystems of Uganda. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment Available online 19 March 2012
Photo credit: vredeseilanden
Bioversity
International is conducting research on novel ways to bridge community-based management practices to conserve and use plant genetic resources with national and international genebanks.
We are interested to learn from experiences of local gene/seed banks from around the world that collect, conserve, and produce seeds of crops and varieties of various kinds (major crops, minor crops, underutilized and neglected species). Some of the questions we are interested in are:
• How did the community gene/seed bank emerge? Who manages them and how? What roles do they play? What kind of and how much plant genetic resources do they hold/flow in and out of them? Who is using these materials?
• How do community gene/seed banks connect to other local or regional initiative of the same nature? Are they connected with formal system gene-banks and seed systems at national level?
• Do policies, laws and (informal) institutions impact on the operations?
• What are effective incentives, institutional support mechanisms, and links to guarantee long-term functioning?
If you have any documentation about local experiences and would like to contribute to the study, please contact Ronnie Vernooy at: r.vernooy@cgiar.org
Thank you in advance.
Photo credit: Neil Palmer, CIAT
Posted in Genetic resources, Research
Nature | Review
Emerging fungal threats to animal, plant and ecosystem health
Matthew C. Fisher,1 Daniel. A. Henk,1 Cheryl J. Briggs,2 John S. Brownstein,3 Lawrence C. Madoff,4 Sarah L. McCraw5 & Sarah J. Gurr5
Nature, Volume: 484, Pages: 186–194, Date published: (12 April 2012) – DOI: doi:10.1038/nature10947
The past two decades have seen an increasing number of virulent infectious diseases in natural populations and managed landscapes. In both animals and plants, an unprecedented number of fungal and fungal-like diseases have recently caused some of the most severe die-offs and extinctions ever witnessed in wild species, and are jeopardizing food security. Human activity is intensifying fungal disease dispersal by modifying natural environments and thus creating new opportunities for evolution. We argue that nascent fungal infections will cause increasing attrition of biodiversity, with wider implications for human and ecosystem health, unless steps are taken to tighten biosecurity worldwide.
To access to the full text of this article you need a subscribtion to the journal.
Posted in Ecology, Environment, Food & Nutrition, Pests and Disease
Many of our readers may not be aware that Bioversity scientists and staff are increasingly using video clips to communicate, and disseminate information about their research projects and initiatives. Project sites and stories told by farmers and partners involved in these projects are featured in these videos.
These videos are made available to the public via our YouTube account. Currently we have over 20 videos, and this number will continue to grow. One of our latest videos looks at the work Bioversity International is doing with local communities to safeguard and use the diversity of tropical fruits to increase incomes, preserve local culture and identity and improve nutrition and health. Make sure you take some time to look at the other videos you can find on the Bioversity You Tube Channel
Ecosystem services in support of a greener revolution in Africa
Written by: SS Snapp, MJ Blackie, and GY Kanyama-Phiri
http://www.new-ag.info/en/research/innovationItem.php?a=2356
Posted in Biodiversity, Ecology, Environment, Research
