Genetic uniformity of crop cultivars: challenge and opportunities
2004
Gemechu Keneni (Holetta Agricultural Research Center, Holetta (Ethiopia));Adugna Wakjira (Holetta Agricultural Research Center, Holetta (Ethiopia)))
Plant breeding is one way to confront the challenge of bridging the widening gap between the demand and supply of food in developing countries like Ethiopia. Despite the importance, however, plant breeding has its own side effects. The replacement of landraces with a few genetically uniform varieties depletes genetic diversity and provides ideal conditions for pests, diseases and adverse climatic changes and creates genetic vulnerability. The increasingly growing human population and the subsequently rising demands for more food are the main driving forces towards this narrow genetic base. It is, therefore, important to understand the phenomena and plant to minimize the dangers of genetic vulnerability. The current breeding strategies, variety release, registration and certification procedures leading to genetic uniformity should be reconsidered and some level of diversity should deliberately be maintained in variety development programs. Genetic diversity can be introduced at different levels and in different ways which may include intravarietal, intervarietal, interpretable and interspecific diversities. The farmers' local crop improvement, which would also enable genetic diversity to continue to evolve as a resource for future use, and the informal seed production systems should also be strengthened and integrated with formal breeding programs.
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