Learning objectives
Learning Objective 1
- Learning Objective: Understand the concept and importance of genetic diversity in crop varieties for food security.
- Knowledge:
- Define genetic resources and explain their role in ensuring food security, resilience to climate change, and nutrition.
- Identify key threats to crop genetic diversity and their potential impacts.
- Skills: Recognize the benefits of utilizing diverse crop varieties in agricultural systems.
- Competencies: Critically assess the importance of sustainable use of crop genetic resources for food security, livelihoods, and environmental sustainability.
Learning Objective 2
- Learning Objective: Identify key principles and practices for sustainable use of crop genetic resources.
- Knowledge:
- Explain the core pillars of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and their implications for responsible utilization.
- Describe differences between in situ (on-farm) and ex situ (off-farm) conservation of crop genetic resources.
- Skills: Analyze the economic, environmental, and social aspects of promoting sustainable use of crop genetic resources.
- Competencies: Evaluate different strategies for promoting sustainable use based on specific contexts, considering diverse stakeholders.
Learning Objective 3
- Learning Objective: Apply knowledge of sustainable use to analyze real-world scenarios.
- Knowledge: Identify challenges and opportunities for sustainable use of crop genetic diversity in specific agricultural practices, considering local and global contexts.
- Skills: Develop strategies for integrating sustainable use principles into existing agricultural systems, addressing constraints and challenges.
- Competencies: Collaborate with stakeholders to ensure the responsible utilization of crop genetic resources, balancing conservation and sustainable use goals.
Introduction
Ensuring food security for future generations requires preserving the valuable genetic diversity of plants, animals, and microorganisms used in food and agriculture. This module explores:
- The importance of conserving genetic resources for food security, adaptation to climate change, and sustainable agriculture.
- Threats to genetic diversity, including habitat loss and climate change.
- Strategies for conservation and sustainable use like ex situ and in situ conservation, and participatory approaches.
- This module equips stakeholders with knowledge and tools to effectively manage and utilize genetic resources for a more sustainable and food-secure future
Understanding crop genetic resources
Crop Genetic Resources: Heritable material (DNA) within plants that determines their characteristics, including:
Varieties: Differing types of the same plant species (e.g., basmati and jasmine rice) with high genetic uniformity.
Landraces: Traditional varieties adapted to local conditions, often with unique characteristics and with wide genetic variability.
Importance:
- Food security and resilience: Adapt to changing environments, resist pests and diseases, and maintain productivity in challenging environments.
- Nutrition: Offer a wider range of vitamins, minerals, and essential nutrients for healthy diets.
- Ecosystem health: Support biodiversity and essential ecosystem functions, such as pollination and nutrient cycling.
- Culture: Preserve traditional varieties with cultural value, knowledge, and practices.
Threats to crop genetic diversity
Habitat loss and degradation: Reduces space for wild relatives of crops, which are valuable sources of genetic diversity.
Climate change: Disrupts ecosystems, impacts the survival of wild relatives, and alters agricultural suitability of regions.
Unsustainable practices: Monoculture farming, overuse of pesticides, and improper seed management can lead to loss of varieties.
Market pressures: Focus on uniformity and commercially preferred traits can lead to neglecting diverse varieties with valuable characteristics.
Benefits of sustainable use of crop diversity
Advantages of utilizing diverse crop varieties:
- Adaptation: Diverse varieties can tolerate drought, heat, flooding, and other stresses, increasing resilience to climate change.
- Resilience: Diverse populations resist pests and diseases more effectively, reducing the risk of widespread crop losses.
- Nutrition: Provide a wider range of vitamins, minerals, and essential nutrients, contributing to food and nutritional security.
- Livelihoods: Contribute to income generation and strengthen cultural ties through diverse crop production.
- Markets: Offer unique characteristics for niche markets and value-added products, creating economic incentives for conserving diversity.
limitations and challenges
- Managing diverse crops may require more knowledge, labor, and specialized skills compared to monoculture.
- Market demands sometimes focus on uniformity. Finding the right markets for diverse varieties of crops can be more challenging.
- Seed access and availability of diverse and locally adapted varieties might be limited.
Some traditional or diverse varieties may not match the high yields of modern, commercial hybrids or improved varieties. Balancing food production needs with diversity can be tricky, and finding ways to increase the yields of diverse varieties is important.
While crop diversity offers valuable genetic resources, it’s important to find the right diversity. Not all traditional varieties might be automatically suitable for emerging climate challenges or new pest and disease pressures. Research and breeding are needed to ensure the best use of diversity under changing conditions.
Focusing on diversity may sometimes have economic implications for farmers, especially in the short term. Transitioning to more diverse systems might require initial investments, temporary yield changes while establishing a new system, or finding different marketing channels.
Sustainable use of crop genetic resources in practice
Key practices to ensure that the genetic diversity of crops is preserved and utilized in a way that benefits both the environment and society, aligning with principles from the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
Use of locally adapted varieties combined with local knowledge:
Farmers and technicians should prioritize the use of crop varieties that are adapted to local environmental conditions. These varieties often have a greater resistance to local pests and diseases and are more suited to the specific soil and climate conditions, reducing the need for chemical inputs.
Leveraging traditional and local agricultural knowledge can provide insights into sustainable farming practices that have been refined over generations. This includes knowledge on crop rotation, intercropping, and natural pest management techniques well adapted to local varieties that can improve productivity and sustainability.
Fair access and benefit sharing:
Ensure that access to genetic resources is fair and equitable, and that benefits arising from their use are shared in a just manner. This includes both financial and non-financial benefits, such as technology transfer and capacity building.
Farmers and technicians should work within frameworks that recognize the rights of local communities and indigenous peoples to their genetic resources. Participating in or establishing community seed banks and sharing information on cultivation techniques can help.
On-farm conservation:
This involves the saving and selection of diverse crop varieties by farmers, maintaining traditional landraces, and participating in breeding programs to develop improved varieties tailored to local conditions.
Technicians can train farmers in seed selection and saving techniques, help establish community seed banks, and facilitate participatory breeding programs where farmers work alongside scientists to create varieties that are adapted to local conditions and needs.
Ex-Situ conservation:
This is carried out by gene banks or botanical gardens and involves the storage of seeds or other plant materials in controlled conditions to preserve genetic diversity.
Farmers can contribute to ex situ conservation by providing seeds of local varieties to gene banks.
Technicians can assist in the collection and documentation of these varieties, ensuring that their genetic information is recorded and preserved.
Community seed banks:
Small-scale local organizations that store seed on a short-term basis and serve the needs of individual communities or several communities in a district.
A mix between ex situ and in situ, community seed banks allows for the preservation of genetic material, facilitates the exchange of seeds among farmers, and enhances access to a diverse range of crop varieties. These banks play a crucial role in safeguarding genetic diversity for future generations.
Capacity building and knowledge sharing:
Providing education and training to farmers and local communities on sustainable agricultural practices, crop diversity management, and market development.
Implementation: organize training sessions and field days where farmers can learn about sustainable agricultural techniques, the importance of genetic diversity, and how to market diverse crops effectively.
Market access:
Identifying niche markets for unique products and establishing certification schemes can help promote the economic viability of diverse crop varieties. Value chains that support local production and fair trade can enhance the marketability of these crops.
Implementation: technicians can assist farmers in identifying potential markets for their unique crop varieties, help develop branding and certification schemes that emphasize the sustainable and unique aspects of their products, and establish connections with buyers interested in niche and heritage crops.
Participatory approaches:
Engaging local communities and farmers in decision-making processes, from conservation strategies to marketing, ensures that their knowledge and needs are considered.
Implementation: facilitate workshops and meetings where farmers can express their needs and preferences, share traditional knowledge, and participate actively in the planning and implementation of conservation and utilization strategies.
Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB) programs can lead to the creation of new, resilient varieties that are more likely to be adopted by local communities.
How can we implement these Practices
Education and training
Farmers and technicians need access to education and training on the importance of genetic diversity and how to implement sustainable farming practices.
Collaboration with research institutions
Working alongside agricultural researchers and institutions can provide access to improved varieties, technical expertise, and resources for participatory plant breeding and other initiatives.
Community engagement
Building strong community networks for seed sharing and knowledge exchange can enhance the resilience of local agriculture systems.
Policy support
Advocacy for policies that support the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources is crucial. This includes securing farmers’ rights to save, use, exchange, and sell farm-saved seed.
What would you do? Reviving the Garrotxa White Bean in Catalonia, Spain
Introduction: You are a young agricultural entrepreneur in Catalonia, Spain, passionate about preserving local food traditions. You learn about the Garrotxa white bean, a landrace historically cultivated in the volcanic region but now facing near extinction due to low market demand and competition from commercially available varieties.
- Task: In groups of 3-4, analyze the situation and develop a strategy to:
- Revive the cultivation of the Garrotxa white bean.
- Increase its market value and economic viability for local farmers.
What would you do? Considerations for Analysis
Challenges
- Limited knowledge and skills related to cultivating the Garrotxa white bean, especially among younger generations.
- Difficulty competing with readily available and lower-priced commercial bean varieties.
- Raising awareness and creating a market for a relatively unknown and niche product.
Strengths and Opportunities
- Unique flavor profile and culinary applications specific to the Garrotxa white bean.
- Growing interest in local, sustainable, and heritage food products among consumers.
- Potential for collaboration with chefs, restaurants, and food distributors interested in unique ingredients.
What would you do? Action Items
Knowledge Sharing and Capacity Building:
- Partner with experienced farmers and agricultural experts to document traditional cultivation methods and share knowledge with new potential growers.
- Organize workshops and training programs to equip farmers with the necessary skills to successfully cultivate the Garrotxa white bean.
Market Development and Branding:
- Conduct research on potential markets, including high-end restaurants, specialty food stores, and consumers seeking unique and authentic food experiences.
- Develop a strong brand identity that highlights the history, unique characteristics, and sustainable cultivation practices associated with the Garrotxa white bean.
- Utilize marketing and promotional strategies to raise awareness and educate consumers about the value of the Garrotxa white bean.
Collaboration and Partnerships:
- Collaborate with local chefs and restaurants to create unique dishes featuring the Garrotxa white bean, promoting its culinary potential.
- Partner with food distributors and retailers to create dedicated sections for local and heritage food products, including the Garrotxa white bean.
- Explore opportunities for collaboration with tourism agencies to promote the Garrotxa white bean as part of the region’s cultural and gastronomic heritage.
Quiz
Bibliography
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- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2013). Climate-Smart Agriculture Sourcebook. FAO.
- Halewood, M., Lopez Noriega, I., & Louafi, S. (Eds.). (2013). Crop Genetic Resources as a Global Commons: Challenges in International Law and Governance. Routledge.
- Mba, C., Guimaraes, E. P., & Ghosh, K. (Eds.). (2012). Plant Genetic Resources and Climate Change. CABI.
- Lipper, L., Thornton, P., Campbell, B. M., Baedeker, T., Braimoh, A., Bwalya, M., Caron, P., Cattaneo, A., Garrity, D., Henry, K., Hottle, R., Jackson, L., Jarvis, A., Kossam, F., Mann, W., McCarthy, N., Meybeck, A., Neufeldt, H., Remington, T., Sen, P. T., Sessa, R., Shula, R., Tibu, A., & Torquebiau, E. F. (2014). Climate Smart Agriculture for Food Security. Nature Climate Change, 4(12), 1068–1072.
- Bioversity International. (2017). Mainstreaming Agrobiodiversity in Sustainable Food Systems: Scientific Foundations for an Agrobiodiversity Index. Bioversity International.
- CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). (2015). Genetic Resources and Climate Change: Adaptive Agriculture for the Future.
