It is a distressing truism that the human race during the last millennium has caused the exponential loss of plant genetic diversity throughout the world. This has had direct and negative economic, political and social consequences for the human race, which at the same time has failed to exploit fully the positive benefits that might result from conserving and exploiting the world's plant genetic resources. However, a strong movement to halt this loss of plant diversity and enhance its utilisation for the benefit of all humanity has been underway since the 1960's (Frankel and Bennett, 1970; Frankel and Hawkes, 1975). This initiative was taken up by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, 1992) that not only expounds the need to conserve biological diversity but links conservation to exploitation and development for the benefit of all. Article 8 of the Convention clearly states the need to develop more effective and efficient guidelines to conserve biological diversity, while Article 9, along with the FAO International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources, promotes the adoption of a complementary approach to conservation that incorporates both ex situ and in situ techniques.

We live in critical times for the world's diversity of plants and animals. It is universally agreed that a catastrophic loss of biological diversity is occurring at the moment, with species, and equally importantly, genes being lost forever. However, the signing of the Biodiversity Convention at the Earth Summit in 1992 drew attention to the need to conserve and equitably utilize biological diversity for the benefit of all humankind. The convention placed emphasis on the need for a complementary approach to conservation that employed both ex situ and in situ techniques. Though much conservation and genetic research has focused on ex situ techniques, where the biological diversity is moved from its original location for safe storage, relatively little progress has been made in developing strategies appropriate for the genetic conservation of biological diversity in situ, in its native environment. The time is right for a definitive assessment of the principles required to conserve the genetic diversity of crops, their wild relatives and wild species within natural habitats. This book therefore provides a practical and theoretical introduction to the techniques of in situ conservation of plant genetic resources. It includes methodologies, case studies and in-depth discussion of on-farm and genetic reserve conservation, written by acknowledged international experts on the subject.

This 1975 book deals with one of the world's fastest disappearing natural resources - the invaluable reservoir of genetic variability in our cultivated plants which have evolved since our forebears began to domesticate them some 10,000 years ago. The preservation of these 'genetic resources', as they have come to be called, is vital to mankind. Without them the geneticists and plant breeders cannot breed the new varieties needed to feed the world's population by providing more disease-resistant strains of our food plants. This volume explores topics such as how to collect and preserve this variation. It ends with a section on how these activities are planned on a world scale through the medium of FAO and other international agencies, and with the participation of scientists from developed and developing countries. This book will be of use as an intelligently written work of much historic value.

It is a distressing truism that the human race during the last millennium has caused the exponential loss of plant genetic diversity throughout the world. This has had direct and negative economic, political and social consequences for the human race, which at the same time has failed to exploit fully the positive benefits that might result from conserving and exploiting the world's plant genetic resources. However, a strong movement to halt this loss of plant diversity and enhance its utilisation for the benefit of all humanity has been underway since the 1960's (Frankel and Bennett, 1970; Frankel and Hawkes, 1975). This initiative was taken up by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, 1992) that not only expounds the need to conserve biological diversity but links conservation to exploitation and development for the benefit of all. Article 8 of the Convention clearly states the need to develop more effective and efficient guidelines to conserve biological diversity, while Article 9, along with the FAO International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources, promotes the adoption of a complementary approach to conservation that incorporates both ex situ and in situ techniques.

One of the world centers of crop evolution and origin, Ethiopia has long been recognized as an important area of diversity for several major and various minor crops. Based on an international conference held in Addis Ababa, this book describes how plant genetic diversity in Ethiopia is of vital importance in breeding new varieties of crops with desirable characteristics, such as increased resistance to pests and diseases and greater adaptation to heat and drought. The three main sections in the book consider the Ethiopian center of diversity, germ plasm or genetic material collection and conservation in Ethiopia, and the evaluation and utilization of Ethiopian genetic resources. A broad range of food and feed crops and plants of medicinal and industrial importance are discussed, both at a national and international level. A brief account of conservation strategies and gene bank problems unique to Ethiopia is also given. The importance of Ethiopia's plant genetic resources to world agriculture has been demonstrated on more than one occasion. Plant breeders, geneticists, and botanists throughout the world will, therefore, find this unique book a valuable source of information and an essential reference work.

One of the world centers of crop evolution and origin, Ethiopia has long been recognized as an important area of diversity for several major and various minor crops. Based on an international conference held in Addis Ababa, this book describes how plant genetic diversity in Ethiopia is of vital importance in breeding new varieties of crops with desirable characteristics, such as increased resistance to pests and diseases and greater adaptation to heat and drought. The three main sections in the book consider the Ethiopian center of diversity, germ plasm or genetic material collection and conservation in Ethiopia, and the evaluation and utilization of Ethiopian genetic resources. A broad range of food and feed crops and plants of medicinal and industrial importance are discussed, both at a national and international level. A brief account of conservation strategies and gene bank problems unique to Ethiopia is also given. The importance of Ethiopia's plant genetic resources to world agriculture has been demonstrated on more than one occasion. Plant breeders, geneticists, and botanists throughout the world will, therefore, find this unique book a valuable source of information and an essential reference work.

A reissue of a scholarly classic considers the influence of the potato on the social structure and economy throughout history wherever men adopted it as a mainstay of their diets.

The recent development of ideas on biodiversity conservation was already being considered almost three-quarters of a century ago for crop plants and the wild species related to them, by the Russian geneticist N. . Vavilov. He was undoubtedly the first scientist to understand the impor tance for humankind of conserving for utilization the genetic diversity of our ancient crop plants and their wild relatives from their centres of diversity. His collections showed various traits of adaptation to environ mental extremes and biotypes of crop diseases and pests which were unknown to most plant breeders in the first quarter of the twentieth cen tury. Later, in the 1940s-1960s scientists began to realize that the pool of genetic diversity known to Vavilov and his colleagues was beginning to disappear. Through the replacement of the old, primitive and highly diverse land races by uniform modem varieties created by plant breed ers, the crop gene pool was being eroded. The genetic diversity of wild species was equally being threatened by human activities: over-exploita tion, habitat destruction or fragmentation, competition resulting from the introduction of alien species or varieties, changes and intensification of land use, environmental pollution and possible climate change."