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“Seeds for Needs” experience to improve diversity, nutrition and crop productivity

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Title “Seeds for Needs” experience to improve diversity, nutrition and crop productivity
 
Creator Kidane, Yosef Gebrehawaryat
Hailemariam, Bogale Nigir
Fadda, Carlo
 
Subject crop improvement
seeds
varieties
diversification
participatory research
local knowledge
 
Description The agricultural industry in Ethiopia is dominated by smallholder farming and rain-fed food
production systems that are struggling with dwindling diversity and expanding mono-
cropping. In order to address diversity, food security, and nutrition, sustainable agricultural
production systems must place a greater emphasis on the efficient protection and
management of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Growing multiple crops in a region is
referred to as crop diversification. It can be achieved by introducing new crop species or
varieties, as well as by altering the current cropping system. Typically, it might refer to
incorporating extra crops into an already-existing rotation. Our seeds for needs experience
will play an important role in enabling agriculture to improve crop productivity, nutrition
and crop diversity productivity.
Together with Ethiopian and international partners, Bioversity International has been
conducting a crowdsourcing methodology and crop improvement strategy under the name
"seeds for needs" since 2010 in order to comprehend and study the potential of these
varieties in underserved areas and to improve the resilience of the communities where
these varieties are grown. The main objective was to provide variation so that farmers could
adjust to climate change.
The Seeds for Needs Initiative, which leverages the genetic diversity already present to
discover traits for adaptation to climate change, has been successfully implemented by
Bioversity International. With the help of farmers, particularly women farmers, Seeds for
Needs uses a participatory approach to choose a set of crops and varieties that will be
further tested under their farming conditions using a crowdsourcing technique.
The registration of two varieties in the Tigray region, development of more than 6000
recombinant inbreed lines and their adoption by smallholder farmers in Tigray, Amhara, and
Oromia, and a number of scientific paper publications that highlight the most important
traits of these varieties—including their high grain and biomass yield in marginal
environments, resistance to diseases, and adaptability to climatic conditions that change
from year to year—are among the most significant outcomes of these studies
 
Date 2022-12-31
2023-01-17T08:58:25Z
2023-01-17T08:58:25Z
 
Type Report
 
Identifier Kidane, Y.G.; Hailemariam, B.N.; Fadda, C. (2022) “Seeds for Needs” experience to improve diversity, nutrition and crop productivity. 32 p.
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/127272
 
Language en
 
Rights CC-BY-4.0
Open Access
 
Format 32 p.
application/pdf