International agrobiodiversity conference

6-9 November 2016. New Delhi, India. The IAC 2016 was attended by 900 delegates from 50 countries.

It was organized by the Indian Society of Plant Genetic Resources (ISPGR) and Bioversity International, in collaboration with Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and many other partners.

Crop diversity in farmer’s fields continues to decline in many parts of the world, often driven by market forces beyond the control of farmers’ themselves. Diversity is also lost from genebanks — a shortage of funding and staff means collections are often poorly maintained.

The First International Agrobiodiversity Conference was an opportunity to begin anew. That’s why practitioners in all these fields, from all over the world, both industrialized and developing, and from both the formal and informal sector, came together in

This congress gave conservation and agro-biodiversity experts and policymakers the opportunity to start mapping out a future that breaks down barriers between the two approaches, integrating them to ensure global food and nutritional security. This means helping politicians and the public understand that conserving the diversity of our food is just as important as conserving the diversity of wild animals.

Reference
SciDev 8/11/2016: Break down barriers between seed banks and field study

Extracts of the programme:

• Ganga Rao NVPR, ICRISAT, Kenya, Effective Utilization of Local Genetic Diversity of pigeonpea, sorghum and finger millet in Eastern and Southern Africa: Impacts and Prospects
• Hamidou Falalou, ICRISAT, Niger, Abiotic stresses tolerance and nutrients contents in groundnut, pearl millet and sorghum mini core collections for food and nutrition security
• Manyasa EO, ICRISAT, Kenya, Exploiting genetic diversity for adaptation and mitigation of climate change: A case of finger millet in East Africa
• Martin Kropff, CIMMYT, Why We Need Effective Partnerships and Agrobiodiversity to Feed 9-Billion People?
• Emile Frison, DNCF, Paradigm Shift in Sustainable Food Systems
• Coosje Hoogendoorn, Royal Tropical Institute, How Informal and Formal Seed Systems Can Work Together for the Conservation and Use of Agrobiodiversity?
• Ed Southern, Kirk House Trust, Fighting Climate Stress with Orphan Legumes

Themes and Sub-themes
1. Agrobiodiversity for Food, Nutrition and Ecosystem Services

• Harnessing traditional foods: landraces, indigenous breeds, native strains and races for nutrition and health
• New species for diversification: genetic resources for the future
• Genetic resources for ecosystem services
• Sustainable use of genetic resources

2. Agrobiodiversity for Adaptation and Mitigation of Climate Change

• Climate change - threats and opportunities
• Assessing real impact of climate change on agrobiodiversity
• Genetic resources for resilience in agriculture

3. Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) and Farmers' Rights

• IPR and other legal instruments: national and international experiences
• Germplasm exchange: current concerns and options for access
• Access and benefit sharing: the way forward
• Farmers’ and Breeders’ rights: implications

4. Quarantine, Biosafety and Biosecurity Issues

• Introducing germplasm: challenges and innovations
• Preparedness for biosafety and biosecurity
• Implementing Cartagena protocol, SPS agreements and other treaties
• Invasive alien species: threat assessment and management

5. Conservation Strategies and Methodologies

• Genebanks: options for efficient management
• In situ and on farm conservation: incentives and sustainability
• Conserving wild relatives and species
• Managing community genebanks: strategies, technologies and policies

"ICRISAT has over 124,000 accessions of six mandate crops (sorghum, chickpea, pigeonpea, pearl millet, groundnut, and finger millet) and five small millets from 144 countries conserved in our genebank at Patancehru in Telangana, India. Besides the central gene bank we have three regional genebanks in Africa, at Kenya, Zimbabwe and Niger, to support our regional partners. ICRISAT genebanks have provided over 1.44 million samples of germplasm to scientists in 148 countries". Message from David Bergvinson

6. Science-led Innovation for Agrobiodiversity Management and Sustainable Use

• Genomic resources: conservation and utilization
• Pre-breeding and genetic enhancement
• Geographical information system (GIS) and remote sensing
• Genetic resource databases and informatics

7. Capacity Building and Strengthening Partnerships

• Capacity building: new initiatives and paradigm shifts
• Civil society organisations: sharing of experiences
• Engendering agrobiodiversity and role of youth
• Partnership and networking