Tropentag, September 19 - 21, 2012 in Göttingen "Resilience of agricultural systems against crises"

Agrobiodiversity Management for Food Security

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Dept. Plant Breeding and Biotechnology, Sweden

Abstract

World population increases by approximately 78 million people annually. About 1 billion humans suffer from hunger and 3 billion malnourished people live with st Century. Agro-biodiversity components act similarly in agro-systems than biodiversity in other ecosystems: genetic diversity or genetic variation within the species, species diversity or variation existing for species in a specific region, and ecosystem diversity comprising variation between agro-systems within a region. Agrobiodiversity provides means for intensifying sustainably crop yields and for adapting crops to climate change, e.g. genetic broadening helps introgressing new genes in breeding populations, intra-specific crop diversification (i.e., mixture of landraces or cultivars) provides a means for controlling effectively pathogens and pests over large areas, and genetically enhanced seed-embedded technology contributes to adapt to variable environments due to changing climate. Sustainable crop genetic enhancement consists of Identifying a useful character, manipulating its genetic variation, putting genes into a usable form, using DNA markers to monitor chromosomal changes and as selection aid, and genetic engineering to enhance useful variation if not available in crop gene pools.

Keywords: Genetic engineering, genomics, germplasm enhancement, plant breeding

Contact Address: Rodomiro Ortiz, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Dept. Plant Breeding and Biotechnology, Box 101 Sundsvägen 14, SE 23053 Alnarp, Sweden, e-mail: rodomiro.ortizslu.se