“Resilient seed systems: tools and techniques for climate change adaptation”

Giving farmers better access to crop and crop varietal diversity will strengthen their capacity to adapt to climate change. Climate and crop modeling tools are increasingly used to project the adaptive capacity of a given crop to the expected changes in climate. The results of these modeling exercises can be used to design strategies to access and use crops and crop varieties that are better adapted to future climate-changes in specific sites. Researchers, genebank managers and farmers could then attempt to gain access to potentially useful plant genetic resources through the multilateral system of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Once obtained, they could evaluate these new plant genetic resources in farmers’ fields.

(Photo: R.Vernooy)

Bioversity International is assisting Bhutanese and Nepali research and development agencies to design and implement a comprehensive capacity building strategy to access and use plant genetic resources in the context of climate change adaptation. The workshop “Resilient seed systems: tools and techniques for climate change adaptation,” held in Thimpu, November 26-28, 2013, aimed to strength the capacity to integrate climate modeling in crop improvement strategies. Topics covered were: identification of farmers’ perceptions of climate change; analysis of climate changes and their impact on seed systems; identification of plant genetic resources that have potential to adapt to identified climate changes; mechanisms for the acquisition of plant genetic resources that have potential to adapt to identified climate changes; and planning of field testing of newly acquired plant genetic resources. 20 participants from Bhutan and 8 from Nepal attended the workshop. GIS tools introduced were DIVA-GIS, MaxEnt, and the climate analogue tool. Resource persons were Prem Mathur, Sarika Mittra, Michael Halewood and Ronnie Vernooy.

Photo: R. Vernooy

 

The workshop was hosted by the National Biodiversity Centre (NBC) of the Ministry of Agricutlure and Forests of Bhutan. The national genebank of Bhutan is located at NBC. A workshop news link can found here: http://www.bbs.bt/news/?p=34226

 

Visiting the NBC. (Photo: R. Vernooy)

CGIAR centres and climate change; new CCAFS working paper

There’s one optimistic conclusion for agriculture under climate change: modelling the future suggests that for many places, the climate they face in 20 or 30 years is already present somewhere on Earth. Farmers and plant scientists can prepare for the future by using something like the Climate Analogues Tool to suggest places to look for crop and varieties that might to some extent be pre-adapted to predicted conditions [http://gismap.ciat.cgiar.org/analogues/].

The next problem, of course, is to access that genetic diversity.

The free movement of the genetic resources themselves and information about them is thus a crucial element in efforts to adapt agriculture to climate change.

A new study of how plant genetic resources move into and out of the CGIAR, carried out for the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) program by researchers at Bioversity International and partners, reveals the invisible flows of material and identifies some of the blockages. CGIAR genebanks keep data on the countries accessions come from and the countries that request accessions, and those data are publically available through the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The study reveals that countries are hugely interdependent on one another, and that the multilateral access and benefit-sharing system of the Treaty is enhancing the availability of genetic resources. Some genebanks have sent material to more than 150 countries. And individual countries have received accessions from a similar number of other countries. But there is also troubling evidence that blockages to the flow are becoming more frequent and harder to get around.

CGIAR centres are themselves adapting in response to climate change. Among these changes are closer direct interactions with farmers, national extension services, NGOs and aid agencies and closer cooperation with the private sector. The details of these broader operational strategies, along with the information on flows, can be found in a working paper based on the new study: Flows under stress: availaibility of plant genetic resources in times of climate and policy change, by Isabel López-Noriega, Gea Galluzzi, Michael Halewood, Ronnie Vernooy, Enrico Bertacchini, Devendra Gauchan and Eric Welch. Link to the paper: http://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/21225

The main findings of the paper will be summarized in three forthcoming CCAFS blogs which will be posted on September 14, 21, and 28 [http://ccafs.cgiar.org/blog]. The authors welcome comments and observations which can be posted directly on the CCAFS blog. Or alternatively, send them to Ronnie Vernooy, r.vernooy@cgiar.org

GRPI 2 research planning workshop report

From May 2-4, 2012, the 8 country teams involved in the GRPI 2 project held an international workshop to discuss and plan research agendas on: policy actors and networks, germplasm flows and interdependence, technology transfer, and farmers’ involvement (supporting community seed banks). This report summarizes the outcomes of the workshop.

http://www.bioversityinternational.org/index.php?id=19&no_cache=1&user_bioversitypublications_pi1%5BshowUid%5D=6930