THE DILEMMA OF AFRICAN AGROBIODIVERSITY: ETHIOPIA AND THE ROLE OF FOOD INSECURITY IN CONSERVATION

Landrace (or in situ) varieties of important crop species are becoming increasingly important to global agriculture as gene banks have increasing trouble keeping pace with the need for genetic material for plant breeders. However genetic erosion (or permanent loss of genetically diverse landrace varieties) poses significant threat to the viability of important genetic material. Processes associated with food insecurity are thought to separate farming communities from agricultural systems in which landrace varieties are important components. While such processes are thought to operate in similar fashion across different cultural ecologies to erode the presence of genetic material, this paper presents evidence from highland Ethiopia in which many of these same processes operate in reverse to instead conserve agrobiodiversity. However conservation of such landrace varieties in this way presents a particular and problematic dilemma to which straightforward answers remain elusive.