asked in 2005

1. How do you explain to people the value of biodiversity?

Biodiversity is crucial to sustained productivity in agriculture. It has special significance to farmers in regions where adverse farming conditions such as drought, disease and pest prevail, or in marginal and heterogeneous environments.


2. What are the main threats to agricultural biodiversity today?

The main threats to agricultural biodiversity include losses due to various stresses like drought, displacement of locally adapted seeds by narrow genetic base materials or monocultures, and the planting of monocrops or stand-alone crop species.


3. How has your work been replicated in other countries?

The work, which is a dynamic farmers based landrace conservation enhancement and utilisation, is now expanding into various regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and Asia in countries where work on sustainable agricultural development exists, implemented through USC-Canada’s Seeds of Survival Programmes.


4. Will farmers’ varieties feed the world? Why not modern varieties?

Farmers’ varieties (landraces) can be enhanced to outperform modern varieties by working with farmers in a participatory manner, by combining scientific know-how with traditional methods of breeding and practices. We can boost yield in landraces without losing the genetic base (i.e. the adaptive gene complex) inherent in such materials, which will also ensure sustained productivity that the high external input modern varieties do not provide.


5. Shouldn’t developing countries quickly adopt genetic engineering to solve the food crisis in places like Africa?

We should first explore the potential that the existing plant genetic diversity provides in this respect i.e. the natural gene reserve which is still abundant – before we lose it completely.


6. What effect has the RLA had on your work?

It has benefited my work through improved recognition and acknowledgement of the merit of my efforts in combining science with farmers’ practices and my approach to crop genetic resource conservation through use.