Crop genetic diversity in the field and on the farm

Advance praise for Crop Genetic Diversity in the Field and on the Farm:

“The definitive text that puts crop genetic diversity and agrobiodiversity in

the context of evolutionary biology and adaptation to rapid changes in the

Anthropocene . . . an essential tool in training young scientists to produce

the information and solutions that will contribute to healthy and resilient

ecosystems for future generations.”—From the Foreword by Cristián

Samper

“The wisdom and hard work of millions of farmers since the advent of

agriculture are finally acknowledged and explained in this landmark book,

which is a must-read for every student or practicing agronomist, ecologist,

environmentalist, and conservationist. The authors need to be congratulated

for a detailed account of the value of and the need for conserving traditional

varieties, which is the key element for transforming the present dead-end

agriculture into a sustainable model based on diverse genetic crop makeup,

complemented by diverse cropping systems.”—Hans R. Herren, Co-Chair

IAASTD

“A comprehensive, wide-ranging, and authoritative text by a virtual ‘dream

team’ of scholars on the subject of on-farm crop genetic diversity. A great re￾source for students and researchers around the globe who are concerned with

the future of agriculture and food security.”—Christine Padoch, Center for

International Forestry Research

“Sound and original scholarship. Retaining crop genetic diversity is important

to the future of human civilization, and this book provides a good, modern

general reference to the science of crop genetic diversity.”—Tim Murray,

Washington State University

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Yale Agrarian Studies Series

James C. Scott, series editor

The Agrarian Studies Series at Yale University Press seeks to publish outstanding and

original interdisciplinary work on agriculture and rural society—for any period, in any

location. Works of daring that question existing paradigms and fill abstract categories

with the lived experience of rural people are especially encouraged.

—James C. Scott, Series Editor

James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Con￾dition Have Failed

Steve Striffler, Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America’s Favorite Food

Alissa Hamilton, Squeezed: What You Don’t Know About Orange Juice

James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland South￾east Asia

Sara M. Gregg, Managing the Mountains: Land Use Planning, the New Deal, and the

Creation of a Federal Landscape in Appalachia

Michael R. Dove, The Banana Tree at the Gate: A History of Marginal Peoples and

Global Markets in Borneo

Edwin C. Hagenstein, Sara M. Gregg, and Brian Donahue, eds., American Georgics:

Writings on Farming, Culture, and the Land

Timothy Pachirat, Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of

Sight

Andrew Sluyter, Black Ranching Frontiers: African Cattle Herders of the Atlantic World,

1500–1900

Brian Gareau, From Precaution to Profit: Contemporary Challenges to Environmental Pro￾tection in the Montreal Protocol

Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt and Gopa Samanta, Dancing with the River: People and Life on the

Chars of South Asia

Alon Tal, All the Trees of the Forest: Israel’s Woodlands from the Bible to the Present

Felix Wemheuer, Famine Politics in Maoist China and the Soviet Union

Jenny Leigh Smith, Works in Progress: Plans and Realities on Soviet Farms, 1930–1963

Graeme Auld, Constructing Private Governance: The Rise and Evolution of Forest, Coffee,

and Fisheries Certification

Jess Gilbert, Planning Democracy: Agrarian Intellectuals and the Intended New Deal

Jessica Barnes and Michael R. Dove, eds., Climate Cultures: Anthropological Perspectives

on Climate Change

Shafqat Hussain, Remoteness and Modernity: Transformation and Continuity in Northern

Pakistan

Edward Dallam Melillo, Strangers on Familiar Soil: Rediscovering the Chile-California

Connection, 1786–2008

Devra I. Jarvis, Toby Hodgkin, Anthony H. D. Brown, John Tuxill, Isabel López Nor￾iega, Melinda Smale, and Bhuwon Sthapit, Crop Genetic Diversity in the Field and

on the Farm: Principles and Applications in Research Practices

For a complete list of titles in the Yale Agrarian Studies Series, visit yalebooks.com/

agrarian.

Crop

Genetic Diversity

in the Field

and

on the Farm

Principles and Applications in

Research Practices

Devra I. Jarvis, Toby Hodgkin,

Anthony H. D. Brown, John Tuxill,

Isabel López Noriega, Melinda Smale, and

Bhuwon Sthapit

Foreword by Cristián Samper

New Haven & London

Published with assistance from the Mary Cady Tew Memorial Fund.

As of December 1, 2006, the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) and the Inter￾national Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain (INIBAP) operate under the name

“Bioversity International.”

The designations employed and the presentations of material in this publication do not imply

the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the International Plant Genetic Resources

Institute, and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, concerning the legal status of any

country, territory, city, or area or of its authorities or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or

boundaries.

The designations “developed” and “developing” economies are intended for statistical con￾venience and do not necessarily express a judgment about the stage reached by a particular country,

territory, or area in the development process.

The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of

Bioversity International and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

Copyright © 2016 by Bioversity International.

All rights reserved.

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond

that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers

for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.

Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional

use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. office) or [email protected] (U.K.

office).

Set in Ehrhardt type by Integrated Publishing Solutions, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Printed in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015943897

ISBN 978-0-300-16112-0 (cloth: alk. paper)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To the many participants whose names and affiliations may

not appear in this volume; numerous farmers, communities,

development workers, educators, researchers, and government

officials collaborated in the work presented in this work, and it is

only through their efforts that this book is possible.

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Contents

Foreword by Cristián Samper ix

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xiii

chapter 1. Introduction and Overview 1

chapter 2. The Origins of Agriculture, Crop Domestication, and

Centers of Diversity 13

chapter 3. Plant Genetic Resources, Conservation, and Politics: A

History of International and National Developments Supporting the

Conservation and Use of Crop Diversity 35

chapter 4. Diversity and Its Evolution in Crop Populations 64

chapter 5. Measuring Diversity in Crops 91

chapter 6. Abiotic and Biotic Components of Agricultural Ecosys￾tems 126

viii contents

chapter 7. Diversity in, and Adaptation to, Adverse Environments On￾Farm 154

chapter 8. Who Are the Managers of Diversity? Characterizing the

Social, Cultural, and Economic Environments 191

chapter 9. Measuring the Values of On-Farm Diversity 212

chapter 10. Policy and Genetic Diversity On-Farm 232

chapter 11. Farm, Community, and Landscape: Genetic Diversity

and Selection Pressures at Different Social, Spatial, and Temporal

Scales 255

chapter 12. Strategies for Collaboration and Intervention 283

chapter 13. Conclusions: Traditional Varieties and Agricultural Pro￾ductivity 313

appendix a. Software Packages Useful for Analyzing Molecular

Data 327

appendix b. Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing

Resources Available on the Internet 329

appendix c. A Selection of PPB Champions Through the Ages 330

Glossary 333

References 351

About the Authors 381

Index 383

Foreword

A couple of years ago I had a chance to visit some of the in￾digenous communities in Otavalo, Ecuador. We gathered at a

small wooden school at the end of a dirt road to meet with several women

and learn about the crops they had in their farms. There was a large table

covered with beans and corn, carefully laid out in rows, each of them with a

small piece of paper and a name. It was a festival of colors, shapes, and sizes.

I spent the next hour learning about each of these varieties, and how each

of them had a different life history: some would grow better in dry seasons,

others were more resistant to certain kind of insects, others were better to

eat. It was several hundred years of knowledge condensed in a small space,

kept alive by these farmers and their farming practices through generations.

They recognized that crop diversity was important for the production of

their agriculture ecosystems and were taking steps to ensure that this diver￾sity continues to be available in their farming systems.

The authors of this book are global experts in ecology, crop breeding,

genetics, anthropology, economics, and policy who have come together to

fill a long-standing gap, namely to place farmer-managed crop biodiversity

squarely at the center of the science we need to feed the world and restore

health to our productive landscapes. This work is more than a clarion call

for biodiversity conservation; it is about using diversity to revitalize agri￾culture to feed a growing population. It represents nearly twenty years of

global research with farmers and communities around the globe that main￾tain genetic diversity in the form of traditional varieties of a large number

x foreword

of crops including those neglected by science. This trans-disciplinary work

is the definitive text that puts crop genetic diversity and agrobiodiversity

within the scientific stream of evolutionary biology and adaptation to rapid

changes in the anthropocene.

A clear strength of this book is that it places the focus squarely on

farmers and the crop genetic diversity they manage and create. The trans￾disciplinary scientific documentation is tightly and coherently bound by

placing farmers and their livelihoods, their services, and their responses

to societal needs and change at the center of the analysis. It supports this

approach with tools that document how much and what kind of diversity

exists and where and when it is being used. The result is a compelling scien￾tific text that shows students and other concerned readers that the results of

farmer interactions with evolutionary process and genetic diversity within

agriculture have produced perhaps the most important heritage we possess.

As a biologist working in conservation in my own country, a mega￾biodiversity hot spot with its own important agricultural biodiversity, and

in global institutions concerned with the ecology of all plants and animals,

I am particularly pleased to finally see agricultural biodiversity placed

squarely within evolutionary biology and human ecology. This book is an

essential tool in training young scientists to produce the information and

solutions that will contribute to healthy and resilient ecosystems for future

generations. My hope is that it will be widely used in all agricultural schools

as well as in training and research institutions concerned with biodiversity

conservation, food security, and sustainable rural development.

I hope some of you will have a chance to visit Otavalo or other rural

communities and to learn from them and support the efforts to use our crop

heritage to maintain and improve the production and resilience of rural

livelihoods. The world will be richer and people healthier as a result of your

work.

Cristián Samper

Wildlife Conservation Society

Bronx, New York, May 2013

Preface

This book presents a unique vision, grounded in the experience

of researching crop genetic diversity on-farm, as is evident

in the plentiful examples and plates the book contains. The vision firmly

links research on crop genetic diversity growing in farmers’ fields with con￾servation of this diversity and its use for sustainable production and for

supporting rural livelihoods. The book covers principles and practices for

gathering and using data that can come from traditional varieties and tra￾ditional farming systems through both participatory diagnostic and empir￾ical approaches. These include methods for identifying ways of supporting

farmers who grow these varieties.

The book therefore introduces the reader to the several methods and

information that the authors see as integral to understanding the extent,

distribution, and nature of the genetic diversity still present in traditional

varieties in farmers’ fields around the world. The book is an integrated mon￾ograph, rather than an edited volume of separately conceived chapters. It

emphasizes the importance of bringing together biological (agronomic, eco￾logical, genetic, etc.), social, economic, and cultural perspectives and data

using multivariate analyses. For such a broad canvas, the book is a guide to

the main motivating concepts (for example, that more diversity improves

resilience) and research questions in the assessment, management, and use

on-farm of crop genetic diversity. Rather than presenting a comprehensive

listing of all the academic literature, or a detailed critical review of specific

xii preface

subject areas, we refer the reader to a selection of relevant primary litera￾ture, which provides an entry enabling the reader to follow up on specific

points.

In a world of increasing environmental and social change, our view of

the conservation and use of crop genetic diversity on-farm is one of dy￾namic evolution. We give evidence, integrated from several disciplines, that

traditional varieties continue to be important to farmers and communities.

This diversity can contribute to improving the sustainability of their agri￾cultural production systems. Therefore, the principles and practices link￾ing research to use of traditional varieties are treated within the context of

improving the lives of farmers and rural communities. We emphasize the

necessity of working together with farmers and rural communities in ways

that ensure respect for all those involved.

Traditional crop varieties continue to be important to the lives of mil￾lions of farmers around the world. They are used and maintained because

they play a central role in the livelihood strategies of individual producers

and rural communities. The current concerns to improve agricultural sus￾tainability and to meet the challenges of change, especially climate change,

suggest that these properties will be crucial for improving rural livelihoods

and wider development objectives. Thus, this book offers the tools needed

not only to investigate genetic diversity in traditional varieties, but also to

support their ongoing conservation and use.