Author: Publisher: CIMMYT
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
Seed Business Management in Africa
Author: Community Seed Banks
Author: Ronnie VernooyPublisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134608608
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 323
Book Description
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. Countries that pioneered various types of community seed banks include Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Nepal, Nicaragua, the Philippines and Zimbabwe. In the North, a particular type of community seed bank emerged known as a seed-savers network. Such networks were first established in Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA before spreading to other countries. Over time, the number and diversity of seed banks has grown. In Nepal, for example, there are now more than 100 self-described community seed banks whose functions range from pure conservation to commercial seed production. In Brazil, community seed banks operate in various regions of the country. Surprisingly, despite 25 years of history and the rapid growth in number, organizational diversity and geographical coverage of community seed banks, recognition of their roles and contributions has remained scanty. The book reviews their history, evolution, experiences, successes and failures (and reasons why), challenges and prospects. It fills a significant gap in the literature on agricultural biodiversity and conservation, and their contribution to food sovereignty and security.
Securing the Harvest
Author: Joseph DeVriesPublisher: CABI
ISBN: 0851995640
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
Improved food security, led by increased productivity among Africa's many small-scale farmers, has been the aim of significant national and international effort in recent decades. It has proved to be one of the most critical challenges facing humankind. This book grew out of a two-year exploration conducted by the food security theme of The Rockefeller Foundation focusing on the potential for crop genetic improvement to contribute to food security among rural populations in Africa. It provides a critical assessment of the ways in which recent breakthroughs in biotechnology, participatory plant breeding, and seed systems can be broadly employed in developing and delivering more productive crop varieties in Africa's diverse agricultural environments. It also presents an analysis of current plant breeding and biotechnology strategies for the key crops in Africa including: maize, sorghum, cowpea, rice, and cassava. The book will appeal to plant breeders, biotechnologists, and seed distributors as well as policy-makers in the area of agricultural development.
Lost Crops of Africa
Author: National Research CouncilPublisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309164540
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 378
Book Description
This report is the second in a series of three evaluating underexploited African plant resources that could help broaden and secure Africa's food supply. The volume describes the characteristics of 18 little-known indigenous African vegetables (including tubers and legumes) that have potential as food- and cash-crops but are typically overlooked by scientists and policymakers and in the world at large. The book assesses the potential of each vegetable to help overcome malnutrition, boost food security, foster rural development, and create sustainable landcare in Africa. Each species is described in a separate chapter, based on information gathered from and verified by a pool of experts throughout the world. Volume I describes African grains and Volume III African fruits.
Lost Crops of Africa
Author: National Research CouncilPublisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309176891
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 405
Book Description
Scenes of starvation have drawn the world's attention to Africa's agricultural and environmental crisis. Some observers question whether this continent can ever hope to feed its growing population. Yet there is an overlooked food resource in sub-Saharan Africa that has vast potential: native food plants. When experts were asked to nominate African food plants for inclusion in a new book, a list of 30 species grew quickly to hundreds. All in all, Africa has more than 2,000 native grains and fruitsâ€""lost" species due for rediscovery and exploitation. This volume focuses on native cereals, including: African rice, reserved until recently as a luxury food for religious rituals. Finger millet, neglected internationally although it is a staple for millions. Fonio (acha), probably the oldest African cereal and sometimes called "hungry rice." Pearl millet, a widely used grain that still holds great untapped potential. Sorghum, with prospects for making the twenty-first century the "century of sorghum." Tef, in many ways ideal but only now enjoying budding commercial production. Other cultivated and wild grains. This readable and engaging book dispels myths, often based on Western bias, about the nutritional value, flavor, and yield of these African grains. Designed as a tool for economic development, the volume is organized with increasing levels of detail to meet the needs of both lay and professional readers. The authors present the available information on where and how each grain is grown, harvested, and processed, and they list its benefits and limitations as a food source. The authors describe "next steps" for increasing the use of each grain, outline research needs, and address issues in building commercial production. Sidebars cover such interesting points as the potential use of gene mapping and other "high-tech" agricultural techniques on these grains. This fact-filled volume will be of great interest to agricultural experts, entrepreneurs, researchers, and individuals concerned about restoring food production, environmental health, and economic opportunity in sub-Saharan Africa. Selection, Newbridge Garden Book Club
Africa's Gene Revolution
Author: Matthew A. SchnurrPublisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0228000459
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
As development donors invest hundreds of millions of dollars into improved crops designed to alleviate poverty and hunger, Africa has emerged as the final frontier in the global debate over agricultural biotechnology. The first data-driven assessment of the ecological, social, and political factors that shape our understanding of genetic modification, Africa's Gene Revolution surveys twenty years of efforts to use genomics-based breeding to enhance yields and livelihoods for African farmers. Matthew Schnurr considers the full range of biotechnologies currently in commercial use and those in development - including hybrids, marker-assisted breeding, tissue culture, and genetic engineering. Drawing on interviews with biotechnology experts alongside research conducted with more than two hundred farmers across eastern, western, and southern Africa, Schnurr reveals a profound incongruity between the optimistic rhetoric that accompanies genetic modification technology and the realities of the smallholder farmers who are its intended beneficiaries. Through the lens of political ecology, this book demonstrates that the current emphasis on improved seeds discounts the geographic, social, ecological, and economic contexts in which the producers of these crops operate. Bringing the voices of farmers to the foreground of this polarizing debate, Africa's Gene Revolution contends that meaningful change will come from a reconfiguration not only of the plant's genome, but of the entire agricultural system.
Eating Tomorrow
Author: Timothy A. WisePublisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620974231
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271
Book Description
"A powerful polemic against agricultural technology." —Nature A major new book that shows the world already has the tools to feed itself, without expanding industrial agriculture or adopting genetically modified seeds, from the Small Planet Institute expert Few challenges are more daunting than feeding a global population projected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050—at a time when climate change is making it increasingly difficult to successfully grow crops. In response, corporate and philanthropic leaders have called for major investments in industrial agriculture, including genetically modified seed technologies. Reporting from Africa, Mexico, India, and the United States, Timothy A. Wise's Eating Tomorrow discovers how in country after country agribusiness and its well-heeled philanthropic promoters have hijacked food policies to feed corporate interests. Most of the world, Wise reveals, is fed by hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers, people with few resources and simple tools but a keen understanding of what and how to grow food. These same farmers—who already grow more than 70 percent of the food eaten in developing countries—can show the way forward as the world warms and population increases. Wise takes readers to remote villages to see how farmers are rebuilding soils with ecologically sound practices and nourishing a diversity of native crops without chemicals or imported seeds. They are growing more and healthier food; in the process, they are not just victims in the climate drama but protagonists who have much to teach us all.
Cover Crops in West Africa
Author: International Development Research Centre (Canada)Publisher: IDRC
ISBN: 088936852X
Category : Cover crops
Languages : en
Pages : 319
Book Description
Cover Crops in West Africa Contributing to Sustainable Agriculture
African Seed Enterprises
Author: Paul van MelePublisher: CABI
ISBN: 9781845938444
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
In most developing countries, good quality seed is hard to obtain and farmers struggle to save seed from one year to the next. This title takes a people-centred look at the companies, public agencies and family farms that are taking on this role and making a difference to food security across Africa.
Agricultural Research in Africa
Author: Lynam, JohnPublisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN: 0896292126
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 459
Book Description
This book—prepared by Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI), which is led by IFPRI—offers a comprehensive perspective on the evolution, current status, and future goals of agricultural research and development in Africa, including analyses of the complex underlying issues and challenges involved, as well as insights into how they might be overcome. Agriculture in Africa south of the Sahara is at a prospective tipping point. Growth has accelerated in the past decade, but is unsustainable given increasing use of finite resources. The yield gap in African agriculture is significant, and scenarios on feeding the world’s population into the future highlight the need for Africa to expand its agricultural production. Agricultural Research in Africa: Investing in Future Harvests discusses the need to shift to a growth path based on increased productivity—as in the rest of the developing world— which is essential if Africa is to increase rural incomes and compete in both domestic and international markets. Such a shift ultimately requires building on evolving improvements that collectively translate to deepening rural innovation capacity.