About us

The outcome of the project will be that resource-poor rural populations will benefit from reduced crop vulnerability to pest and disease attacks through increased use of genetic diversity on-farm.  By providing farmers and NARS researchers with the tools and practices needed to manage local crop (intra-specific) genetic diversity, farmers’ options to combat pest and disease on-farm will be expanded, food security will be increased, genetic diversity conserved, and ecosystem health improved.  The project will develop tools to determine when and where intra-specific crop diversity can be used to manage pest and disease pressures by integrating existing farmer knowledge, belief and practices with advances in the analysis of crop-pest/disease interactions. Unlike Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategies, which have focused on using agronomic management techniques to modify environment around predominantly modern cultivars, this project is unique in that it concentrates on the management of the local crop cultivars themselves as the key resource, making use of the intra-specific diversity among cultivars maintained by farmers.