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Experts discuss the challenges faced in agrobiodiversity and conservation, integrating disciplines that range from plant and biological sciences to economics and political science. Wide-ranging environmental phenomena—including climate change, extreme weather events, and soil and water availability—combine with such socioeconomic factors as food policies, dietary preferences, and market forces to affect agriculture and food production systems on local, national, and global scales. The increasing simplification of food systems, the continuing decline of plant species, and the ongoing spread of pests and disease threaten biodiversity in agriculture as well as the sustainability of food res...
The availability of comprehensive and reliable information is crucial for developing evidence-based policies and strategies for the conservation and use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. Information on food and agricultural crops, on their use, interdependence, demand, supply, and security is increasingly available but scattered through a number of information systems, databases and scientific literature. This study was undertaken by a team of international experts to pool together information from a wide range of sources in a user-friendly manner and to develop a reproducible set of metrics and indicators, complementing existing indicators. The main global database source...
The plant species that humans rely upon have an extended family of wild counterparts that are an important source of genetic diversity used to breed productive crops. These wild and weedy cousins are valuable as a resource for adapting our food, forage, industrial and other crops to climate change. Many wild plant species are also directly used, especially for revegetation, and as medicinal and ornamental plants. North America is rich in these wild plant genetic resources. This book is a valuable reference that describes the important crop wild relatives and wild utilized species found in Canada, the United States and Mexico. The book highlights efforts taken by these countries to conserve a...
Crop wild relatives (CWR) are plant species which are more or less closely related to crops. They are a vital resource by providing a pool of genetic variation that can be used in breeding new and better adapted varieties of crops that are resistant to stress, disease, drought and other factors. They will be increasingly important in allowing crops to adapt to the impacts of climate, thus safeguarding future agricultural production. Until recently, the main conservation strategy adopted for CWR has been ex situ - through the maintenance of samples as seed or vegetative material in various kinds of genebank or other facilities. Now the need to conserve CWR in their natural surroundings (in si...
This book introduces critical mapping as a problematizing, reflective approach for analyzing systemic societal problems like food, scoping out existing solutions, and finding opportunities for sustainable design intervention. This book puts forth a framework entitled "wicked solutions" that can be applied to determine issues that designers should address to make real differences in the world and yield sustainable change. The book assesses the current role of design in attaining food security in a sustainable, equitable, and just manner. Accomplishing this goal is not simple; if it was, it would not be called a wicked problem. But this book shows how a particular repertoire of design tools ca...
This eBook is a collection of articles from a Frontiers Research Topic. Frontiers Research Topics are very popular trademarks of the Frontiers Journals Series: they are collections of at least ten articles, all centered on a particular subject. With their unique mix of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Frontiers Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area! Find out more on how to host your own Frontiers Research Topic or contribute to one as an author by contacting the Frontiers Editorial Office: frontiersin.org/about/contact.
Rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in low- and middle-income countries are increasing faster, in younger people, and with worse outcomes than in wealthier countries. In 2013 alone, NCDs killed eight million people before their sixtieth birthdays in developing countries. A new CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force report and accompanying interactive look at the factors behind this epidemic and the ways the United States can best fight it.
Approaching the contributions of a world-wide sector of scientific institutions to addressing the extinction crisis, Botanical Gardens and Their Role in Plant Conservation brings together a diversity of perspectives. There are more than 3,600 botanical gardens worldwide, where trees, shrubs, herbs, and other plants are studied and managed in collections. They are foremost among efforts to conserve the diversity of living plant species and ensure that crucial biodiversity is available for the future of humanity. This book is a showcase for plant conservation, restoration, biodiversity, and related scientific and educational work of botanical gardens around the world, featuring both thematic o...