How does AGRA encourage crop biodiversity?
Africa’s Green Revolution cannot emphasize monocultures and single crops. Africa’s varied ecology and great crop diversity across regions and cultures requires a farmer-participatory approach to breeding many different locally adapted crop varieties. New varieties are needed because many of the seeds farmers use today are inherently low-yielding and vulnerable to a host of crop diseases and pests. All of AGRA’s crop variety development is undertaken with the participation of smallholder farmers. The participatory process first focuses on understanding what is in farmers’ fields, conserving crop biodiversity and utilizing it to develop improved varieties suited to the environment and beneficial to smallholder farmers. AGRA’s Program on African Seed Systems, or PASS, has developed a portfolio of investments to help farmers collect and save genetic resources, particularly through our plans to support public institutions in both ex situ and in situ conservation. PASS, which may be the only
