Agrobiodiversity for Productivity and Resilience Course

PAR is pleased to launch a call for funding for our new International university course in collaboration with the Bioversity-CIAT Alliance and Sapienza University, building on our short summer course, GROW. We are currently seeking donors and partners to make this course a one semester course for junior and senior university students worldwide . Please contact Devra for more information.

Download Textbook

Based on twenty years of global research, the comprehensive textbook: “Crop Genetic Diversity in the Field and on the Farm: Principles and Applications in Research Practices”, Yale University Press, provides the basis of a revised semester curriculum that places farmer-managed crop biodiversity squarely in the center of the science needed to feed the world, and restore health to our productive landscapes. Bringing together the fields of ecology, agronomy, crop breeding, genetics, anthropology, sociology, economics and policy the text book provides theory and tools for identifying ways of supporting farmers to maintain, use and benefit from the crop genetic diversity in their agricultural production systems. 

Purchase the book in English here.

National Partners
Universities with long term PAR/Bioversity and Sapienza University partnerships in: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Canada, China, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Italy, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malawi, Mali, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Oman, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Syria,  Swaziland, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Uganda, USA, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.

The Challenge

Driven by modern plant breeding and seed systems, and the functioning of global markets, mainstream university education in agronomy, has shifted over the past decades towards training students in agricultural production and food systems that emphasize uniformity at the cost of reduced crop and genetic diversity in farmers’ fields. This reduced diversity however is affecting the performance and resilience of farming systems, and human and environmental health. The smallholder farmers are vulnerable to climate change where they have to cope with unpredictable and severe weather patterns, droughts and floods, soil salinization, low soil fertility and land degradation. At the same time, high levels of chemical inputs into the agricultural ecosystem have focused the attention on the need for food safety and human health worldwide. The productivity, resilience and health of farmers in these systems is dependent on diversity in their production system, together with access to diverse quality seeds of local varieties, good agronomic management, and market and non-market alternatives that provide safe quality diverse food products from farm to table.

Our Response

A new paradigm for course content is needed for students of agriculture and natural resources management to obtain the information and strategies needed to develop innovative diversity rich agricultural production solutions where changing environmental and market conditions is the norm. By providing principals for gathering and using real data that can come from traditional crop varieties in unitary and pest infested agricultural systems, using participation diagnostic and empirical research approaches, agronomy students are given the knowledge and tools needed to improve food security and reduce hunger for the rural poor.

Building on this text book, and supplemented with additional reading materials and visual aids recently compiled for a joint summer short course with Sapienza University, Rome, co-authors of the text book together with the Platform on Agrobiodiversity Research, and in collaboration with professors from the participating universities, are proposing to expand the short course into a one semester multi-lingual course curriculum in English, Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, Russian and French . The course is targeted to third and fourth year university students in universities of 27 countries .

Along-side the development of course materials will be the establishment of a global Federation of Teachers: educators who have practical experience in using increased intra-specific crop diversity in agronomic management practices to guide curriculum development and improvement. This first step will be to bring together instructors from universities in the 27 countries for a joint planning workshop hosted by the Orto Botanico (Botanical Gardens of Rome) and Sapienza University to build a global team and educational program.

Overall Objective

The objective of this program is to build the capacity of agronomic students to assess and implement innovative diversity rich solutions to improve agricultural productivity and food safety in under changing climatic and social-economic conditions are the norm.

Activities Planned

(1) Creation of a Global Federation of Teachers that links instructors from other institutes, where long term collaboration in the use of local crop genetic diversity for improved productivity of small holder farmers has been on-going for the last decade;

(2) Assessment of current agronomy, policy, anthropology, genetics, sociology, and ecology courses and degree programs in agricultural and natural resource management in the 27 target countries;

(3) Review and synthesize materials of earlier short courses in countries both within and outside the 27 countries where long term collaboration in the use of local crop genetic diversity for improved productivity of small holder farmers has been on-going for the last decade;

(4) Development of course materials, lesson plans, and compilation and translation of supplementary reading materials in English, Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, Russian and French (printed and Web-based);

(5) Training of university instructors in course content across a team of instructors within each university to cover all topics

(6) Implementing the course in universities or institutions in 27 countries. All universities and institutes have formally agreed to pilot the course in their programs.
The Outcome

Food security improved for vulnerable agricultural ecosystem environments through the support of agronomy and natural resources management graduates who have gained the knowledge and tools to assess and use diversity rich options and plant genetic resources as a productive alternative to conventional uniform varieties.