The Experts below are selected from a list of 3150 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Ranjay K. Singh - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
-
Conservation of Socioculturally Important Local Crop Biodiversity in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia: A Case Study
Environmental Management, 2012Co-Authors: Kebu Balemie, Ranjay K. SinghAbstract:In this study, we surveyed diversity in a range of local crops in the Lume and Gimbichu districts of Ethiopia, together with the knowledge of local people regarding crop uses, socio-economic importance, conservation, management and existing threats. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and participant observation. The study identified 28 farmers’ varieties of 12 crop species. Among these, wheat ( Triticum turgidum ) and tef ( Eragrostis tef ) have high intra-specific diversity, with 9 and 6 varieties respectively. Self-Seed supply or Seed Saving was the main (80 %) source of Seeds for replanting. Agronomic performance (yield and pest resistance), market demand, nutritional and use diversity attributes of the crop varieties were highlighted as important criteria for making decisions regarding planting and maintenance. Over 74 % of the informants grow a combination of “improved” and farmers’ varieties. Of the farmers’ varieties, the most obvious decline and/or loss was reported for wheat varieties. Introduction of improved wheat varieties, pest infestation, shortage of land, low yield performance and climate variability were identified as the principal factors contributing to this loss or decline. Appropriate interventions for future conservation and sustainable use of farmers’ varieties were suggested.
-
Conservation of Socioculturally Important Local Crop Biodiversity in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia: A Case Study
Environmental Management, 2012Co-Authors: Kebu Balemie, Ranjay K. SinghAbstract:In this study, we surveyed diversity in a range of local crops in the Lume and Gimbichu districts of Ethiopia, together with the knowledge of local people regarding crop uses, socio-economic importance, conservation, management and existing threats. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and participant observation. The study identified 28 farmers’ varieties of 12 crop species. Among these, wheat ( Triticum turgidum ) and tef ( Eragrostis tef ) have high intra-specific diversity, with 9 and 6 varieties respectively. Self-Seed supply or Seed Saving was the main (80 %) source of Seeds for replanting. Agronomic performance (yield and pest resistance), market demand, nutritional and use diversity attributes of the crop varieties were highlighted as important criteria for making decisions regarding planting and maintenance. Over 74 % of the informants grow a combination of “improved” and farmers’ varieties. Of the farmers’ varieties, the most obvious decline and/or loss was reported for wheat varieties. Introduction of improved wheat varieties, pest infestation, shortage of land, low yield performance and climate variability were identified as the principal factors contributing to this loss or decline. Appropriate interventions for future conservation and sustainable use of farmers’ varieties were suggested.
Kebu Balemie - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
-
Conservation of Socioculturally Important Local Crop Biodiversity in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia: A Case Study
Environmental Management, 2012Co-Authors: Kebu Balemie, Ranjay K. SinghAbstract:In this study, we surveyed diversity in a range of local crops in the Lume and Gimbichu districts of Ethiopia, together with the knowledge of local people regarding crop uses, socio-economic importance, conservation, management and existing threats. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and participant observation. The study identified 28 farmers’ varieties of 12 crop species. Among these, wheat ( Triticum turgidum ) and tef ( Eragrostis tef ) have high intra-specific diversity, with 9 and 6 varieties respectively. Self-Seed supply or Seed Saving was the main (80 %) source of Seeds for replanting. Agronomic performance (yield and pest resistance), market demand, nutritional and use diversity attributes of the crop varieties were highlighted as important criteria for making decisions regarding planting and maintenance. Over 74 % of the informants grow a combination of “improved” and farmers’ varieties. Of the farmers’ varieties, the most obvious decline and/or loss was reported for wheat varieties. Introduction of improved wheat varieties, pest infestation, shortage of land, low yield performance and climate variability were identified as the principal factors contributing to this loss or decline. Appropriate interventions for future conservation and sustainable use of farmers’ varieties were suggested.
-
Conservation of Socioculturally Important Local Crop Biodiversity in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia: A Case Study
Environmental Management, 2012Co-Authors: Kebu Balemie, Ranjay K. SinghAbstract:In this study, we surveyed diversity in a range of local crops in the Lume and Gimbichu districts of Ethiopia, together with the knowledge of local people regarding crop uses, socio-economic importance, conservation, management and existing threats. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and participant observation. The study identified 28 farmers’ varieties of 12 crop species. Among these, wheat ( Triticum turgidum ) and tef ( Eragrostis tef ) have high intra-specific diversity, with 9 and 6 varieties respectively. Self-Seed supply or Seed Saving was the main (80 %) source of Seeds for replanting. Agronomic performance (yield and pest resistance), market demand, nutritional and use diversity attributes of the crop varieties were highlighted as important criteria for making decisions regarding planting and maintenance. Over 74 % of the informants grow a combination of “improved” and farmers’ varieties. Of the farmers’ varieties, the most obvious decline and/or loss was reported for wheat varieties. Introduction of improved wheat varieties, pest infestation, shortage of land, low yield performance and climate variability were identified as the principal factors contributing to this loss or decline. Appropriate interventions for future conservation and sustainable use of farmers’ varieties were suggested.
Philip H Howard - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
-
visualizing consolidation in the global Seed industry 1996 2008
Sustainability, 2009Co-Authors: Philip H HowardAbstract:The commercial Seed industry has undergone tremendous consolidation in the last 40 years as transnational corporations entered this agricultural sector, and acquired or merged with competing firms. This trend is associated with impacts that constrain the opportunities for renewable agriculture, such as reductions in Seed lines and a declining prevalence of Seed Saving. To better characterize the current structure of the industry, ownership changes from 1996 to 2008 are represented visually with information graphics. Since the commercialization of transgenic crops in the mid-1990s, the sale of Seeds has become dominated globally by Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta. In addition, the largest firms are increasingly networked through agreements to cross-license transgenic Seed traits.
-
Visualizing Consolidation in the Global Seed Industry: 1996–2008
Sustainability, 2009Co-Authors: Philip H HowardAbstract:The commercial Seed industry has undergone tremendous consolidation in the last 40 years as transnational corporations entered this agricultural sector, and acquired or merged with competing firms. This trend is associated with impacts that constrain the opportunities for renewable agriculture, such as reductions in Seed lines and a declining prevalence of Seed Saving. To better characterize the current structure of the industry, ownership changes from 1996 to 2008 are represented visually with information graphics. Since the commercialization of transgenic crops in the mid-1990s, the sale of Seeds has become dominated globally by Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta. In addition, the largest firms are increasingly networked through agreements to cross-license transgenic Seed traits.
Catherine Phillips - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
-
Saving More Than Seeds: Practices and Politics of Seed Saving
2013Co-Authors: Catherine PhillipsAbstract:Saving More Than Seeds advances understandings of Seed-people relations, with particular focus on Seed Saving. The practice of reusing and exchanging Seeds provides foundation for food production and allows humans and Seed to adapt together in dynamic socionatural conditions. But the practice and its practitioners are easily taken for granted, even as they are threatened by neoliberalisation. Combining original ethnographic research with investigation of an evolving corporate Seed order, this book reveals Seed Saving not only as it occurs in fields and gardens but also as it associates with genebanking, genetic engineering, intellectual property rights, and agrifood regulations. Drawing on diverse social sciences literatures, Phillips illustrates ongoing practices of thinking, feeling, and acting with Seeds, raising questions about what Seed-people relations should accomplish and how different ways of relating might be pursued to change collective futures.
-
canada s evolving Seed regime relations of industry state and Seed savers
Environments, 2008Co-Authors: Catherine PhillipsAbstract:The world’s agro-diversity is based on the traditional practices of growers Saving and selecting Seeds; however, a different understanding of the value of Seeds and growers has taken hold within Canada’s contemporary Seed regime. The contemporary Canadian Seed system is characterized by state-facilitated corporate control. In this evolving Seed regime, Saving Seed becomes an anachronistic practice that limits production by using old (less valuable) Seed varieties and techniques, and Seeds are valued only as potential profit-making property. However, Seeds and Seed Saving are valuable, if often overlooked, factors in efforts to re/build alternative food networks. This paper explores the context and practices of Seed Saving within Canada by examining governmental and industry proposals for changing the Seed system and by outlining a few examples of how Seed savers and their supporters are acting to challenge the existing regime while also creating an alternative.
-
Cultivating practices: Saving Seed as green citizenship?
2005Co-Authors: Catherine PhillipsAbstract:In this article it is asserted that Saving Seed is a political practice. This understanding stands in contrast to dominant constructions of Seed Saving as anachronistic and/or private and therefore not of political concern. While Seed savers engage in the more accepted ways of being political in our society such as deputations and letter writing campaigns; they also pursue more direct, local, embodied engagements – by actually Saving Seeds and sharing them with others. Through their practices, Seed savers push the boundaries of what is understood as political action and help create alternative views and realities of socio-natural processes, including those involving food systems. As part of this effort to better understand the political character of Seed Saving practices, theoretical (re)formulations of green citizenship are examined for their applicability to the practices of Seed savers. More specifically, the stewardship and eco-deliberative versions of green citizenship serve as focal theorisations. The theoretical examination in this paper is grounded through an analysis of the experiences and perceptions of Seed savers, as expressed through their own reflections about Saving Seed. This examination is particularly timely as recently proposed changes to Canadian legislation regarding Seeds, combined with intensified Seed industry lobbying, have raised the profile of Seed issues in Canada and provoked questions about who should control Seed production, distribution, and use. In large part these questions relate to whether growers should be allowed to save Seed from year to year and exchange it with others (what are often referred to as ‘farmers’ rights’). On fait valoir dans cet article que la conservation des semences est une pratique a caractere politique. Cette comprehension affiche un contraste marque avec les interpretations predominantes voulant que la conservation des semences soit anachronique et du domaine prive, n’etant par consequent par du ressort politique. Bien que les personnes pratiquant la conservation des semences font de l’action politique d’une maniere davantage admise dans notre societe, comme Catherine Phillips
Janet Henshall Momsen - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
-
Gender and Biodiversity: A New Approach to Linking Environment and Development
Geography Compass, 2007Co-Authors: Janet Henshall MomsenAbstract:The 1992 Convention on Biological Conservation and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (1996) reflect the growing importance of biodiversity for environmental conservation and as a way of maintaining the genetic variety needed for plant breeding and providing new sources of medicines. More recently, agrobiodiversity has been seen as vital for food security in developing countries. This article considers the need to understand decision-making for biodiversity at the grassroots. To achieve this, gender roles, as influenced by gender divisions of labour in food production and the gendered use of different environmental spaces, have to be considered. Women's roles in Seed selection and Seed Saving and use of wild plants for food and medicines play a major role in biodiversity conservation, but these roles are not unchanging and are increasingly influenced by global trade networks and geographical context.
-
Women and Seed management: A study of two villages in Bangladesh
Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 2007Co-Authors: Emily Oakley, Janet Henshall MomsenAbstract:Seed management has until recently been neglected in agrobiodiversity research. Gender dimensions in Seed selection, processing, storage and exchange embody critical task areas in the human management of diverse crop species and varieties. This paper focuses on women’s roles in Seed management in field and homegarden crops in Bangladesh and reports on the findings of a study in two villages in Tangail District. Seventy-five women were surveyed with a questionnaire and subsets interviewed in-depth; focus groups conducted for women and men provided a means of cross-checking responses. Three distinct areas of agrobiodiversity were addressed: the gendered divisions of labour among agricultural tasks; the pervasiveness of Seed Saving among respondents; and Seed management practices and techniques. The results indicate that while men have greater authority over field activities, homegarden production is the exclusive domain of women. Seed management is seen as an extension of women’s domestic duties: women are responsible for all Seed processing, storage and exchange for field as well as homegarden crops. The vast majority of Seeds sown are saved on-farm by women, revealing important cultural, economic and environmental implications for agrobiodiversity conservation and local differences.