Users' themes
The list in this chapter provides leads to websites where focus is on breeding, i.e. the science of changing the traits of plants in order to produce desired characteristics. The goals of plant breeding are to produce crop varieties that boast unique and superior traits for a variety of agricultural applications. The most frequently addressed traits are those related to biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, grain or biomass yield, end-use quality characteristics such as taste or the concentrations of specific biological molecules (proteins, sugars, lipids, vitamins, fibers) and ease of processing (harvesting, milling, baking, malting, blending, etc.).
The links below provide information on crops in a specialized way, i.e. with particular attention to the peculiarities of the specific crop.
Since the dawn of agriculture, farmers around the world have been the custodians and innovators of agricultural biodiversity. Through careful selection of their best seeds and propagating material, and exchange with other farmers, it became possible to develop and diversify crop varieties. As new crops were found in the wild, some of these were domesticated and cultivated. Community seed banks have been founded since the early 1980th in many parts of the world. They maintain and develop agricultural bio-diversity, enhance access to seeds and plants adapted to local conditions, provide training and sensibilisation activities and thereby contribute to sustainable agriculture and food sovereignty.
- World Farmers' Organisation (WFO) WFO is a member-based association, bringing together national farmers' organizations and agricultural cooperatives from all over the world (Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa, Latin America and North America).
- The Global Farmer Network (GFN) GFN amplifies the farmers' voice in promoting trade, technology, sustainable farming, economic growth, and food security.
- Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers (ESAFF) Regional - Africa. ESAFF is a network of grassroots small scale farmers' organizations working in 16 countries of the Eastern and Southern Africa region.
- Semences Normes et Paysans (SNP) National - Mali. SNP's members are representatives of the National Assembly, Ministry of Agriculture and its technical services, farmer organizations working on peasant seeds, universities and research institutions, as well as supporting NGOs.
- Comité Ouest-Africain des Semences Paysannes - Burkina Faso (COASP-Burkina Faso) Regional - Africa. COASP brings together farmers and peasant producers of seeds, organized or not, support structures and resource people who share the same vision, ensuring that farmers/peasants are at the heart of decisions.
- RAYA-KARKARA National - Niger. RAYA-Karkara brings together farmers' organizations and other civil society organizations working for agroecology, including farmers' seeds.
- African Farmers Association of South Africa (AFASA) National - South Africa. AFASA strives to create a sustainable united body of African farmers with the capacity to influence policies through lobbying and advocacy in favour of African farmers.
- Pan-African Farmers' Organization (PAFO) Regional - Africa. PAFO is a continental organization with a membership base composed of Regional Farmers Networks.
- L'Union Maghrébine et Nord-Africaine des Agriculteurs (UMNAGRI) Regional - Africa. UMNAGRI is a regional farmer organization with a professional vocation, benefiting legal and financial autonomy, based in Tunis.
- Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU) Regional - Africa. SACAU is a regional farmers' organisation representing the common interest of farmers in southern Africa.
- Réseau des Organisations Paysannes et de Producteurs de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (ROPPA) Regional - Africa. ROPPA is an initiative specific to farmers' organizations and agricultural producers in West Africa. It brings together 13 members of national farmer organizations and associated member farmer organizations. ROPPA has positioned itself as a tool for the defense and promotion of family farms, which constitute the main production system in West Africa.
- Plateforme Régionale des Organisations Paysannes D'afrique Centrale (PROPAC) Regional - Africa. Created in 2005, PROPAC brings together the national platforms of small agricultural producers from the ten member countries of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) / the Economic and Monetary Community of Central African States (CEMAC). Its head office is in Yaoundé, Cameroon.
- Eastern African Farmers Federation (EAFF) Regional - Africa. Created in 2005, EAFF is an apex organization of all Farmers of Eastern Africa. Its role is to voice legitimate concerns and interests of farmers of the region with the aim of enhancing regional cohesiveness and the social-economic status of the farmers.
- FEKRITAMA Confederation National - Madagascar. The FEKRITAMA Confederation (Fivondronamben 'ny Tantsaha Malagasy or Madagascar farmers confederation) constitutes 12 federations and 22 Regional Farmers' Organizations.
- União Nacional de Camponeses (UNAC) National - Mozambique. UNAC represents the farmers and their organizations to ensure their social, economic and cultural rights by strengthening farmers' organizations, participation in the formulation of public policies and strategies of development in order to ensure food sovereignty, taking into account the youth and equity of gender.
- The National Union of Algerian Farmers (Union Nationale des Paysans Algériens - UNPA) National - Algeria. UNPA is a farmers' organization in Algeria.
- Sub Sahara African Farmers Organization - SSAFO Regional - Africa. SSAFOs aim is to reduce poverty by unleashing Sub-Sahara African farmers' abilities to grow their incomes in an environmentally sustainable way.
- Kenya National Farmers' Federation (KENAFF) National - Kenya. KENAFF is a non-political, non-profit making and democratic member-based umbrella organization of all farmers in Kenya. It represents the interests of over 2 million farm families as the legitimate farmers' voice with the objective of articulating issues affecting them through focused lobby and advocacy, targeted capacity building and promotion of sector stakeholders' cohesiveness in dispensing progressive uptake of agricultural innovations for enhanced socio-economic status of the farmers.
- Inter-Réseaux Développement rural (IRED) Regional - Africa. This network resulted from the merger of several thematic networks on rural development, including "Groups, village associations, farmers' organizations" (GAO), "Research-Development" and "Food Strategies".
- Campagao Farmers' Production and Research Association (CFPRA) Local - Village of Campagao, Philippines.
- Pagkakaisa para sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo at Kaunlarang Pangkanayunan (PARAGOS) PILIPINAS National - Philippines. PARAGOS-PILIPINAS is a civil society organization engaging in education and awareness campaigns on land rights and sustainable agriculture practices, often in partnership with other NGOs.
- Karnataka State Farmers' Association National - India. KRRS is a farmers' organisation in India that was started to fight for farmers' rights.
- Southeast Asia Regional Initiative for Community Empowerment (SEARICE) Regional - Asia. SEARICE's aim is to strengthen farmers' conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources. SEARICE empowers farmers and advocates for policies that recognize, support, strengthen, and institutionalize community initiatives on the conservation, development, and use of plant genetic resources.
- Association of Indonesian Seed Banks and Farmers Agricultural Technology (Asosiasi Bank Benih dan Teknologi Indonesia-AB2TI) National - Indonesia. AB2TI was established in 2012 with the main purpose of enhancing the knowledge and capacities of farmers in plant breeding.
- Serikat Petani Indonesia (SPI / Indonesian Farmer Union) National - Indonesia. The Indonesian Farmer Union was declared on July 8, 1998 in Dolok Maraja Village, Lobu Ropa Village, Bandar Pulau District, Asahan Regency, North Sumatra by a number of Indonesian farmer fighters.
- Asian Farmers Association Regional - Asia. AFA is an Asian alliance of national farmers organizations composed of small-scale women and men family farmers, fishers, indigenous peoples, forest users, herders, and pastoralists.
- Pacific Island Farmers Organisation Network (PIFON) Regional - South-West Pacific. The Pacific Island Farmers Organisation Network serves as an umbrella organisation for national farmer organizations in the Pacific island region.
- Farmer's Pride
- Let's Liberate Diversity
- Confédération Paysanne Regional - Europe. Confédération Paysanne has engaged in advocacy work to defend the right of farmers to use seeds harvested from their own crops; the organization has further mobilized against transgenic crops on many occasions.
- Consorzio della Quarantina per la Tutela dei Prodotti di Varietà e Razze tradizionali della Montagna genovese Local - Italy. The Consortium was founded on the initiative of 20 agricultural producers from the Genoese area, with the first denomination of the Consortium for the protection of the Genoese white Quarantina and the traditional potatoes of the Genoese mountain.
- Rete Semi Rurali National - Italy. Rete Semi Rurali - the Italian Farmers' Seeds Network - was established in 2007 and it currently consists of 34 associations.
- The Conseil Européen des Jeunes Agriculteurs (CEJA) Regional - Europe. CEJA acts as a forum for communication between young farmers and European decision-makers. Its main objective is to promote a younger and more innovative agricultural sector across the EU-27 and to create good working and living conditions for young people setting up in farming and those who are already "young farmers".
- Unión de Organizaciones Campesinas e Indígenas de Cotacachi (UNORCAC) National - Ecuador. UNORCAC is an association of farmers' and indigenous peoples' organizations in Cotacachi, Ecuador.
- Programa Colaborativo de Fitomejoramiento Participativo en Mesoamérica (FPMA) Regional - LAC. The Collaborative Program for Participatory Plant Breeding in Mesoamerica is one of the pioneering programs with more than 10 years of work, in relation to the participation of farmers in decision-making and access to knowledge for the improvement of varieties.
- Asociación de Organizaciones de los Cuchumatanes (ASOCUCH) National - Guatemala. Asociación de Organizaciones de los Cuchumatanes (ASOCUCH) is defined as a network of organizations of small rural producers in municipalities of the Department of Huehuetenango.
- Articulação do Semi-árido (ASA) Brasileiro National - Brazil. ASA is a network formed by more than three thousand civil society organizations of different natures - rural unions, associations of farmers, cooperatives, NGOs, Oscip, etc.
- Organización Mapuche Consejo de Todas las Tierras Chile National - Chile. The Organización Mapuche Consejo de Todas las Tierras represents more than three hundred Mapuche communities living in their ancient territories in Araucanía region of Chile.
- Federación de Cooperativas para el Desarrollo (FECODESA) National - Nicaragua. FECODESA is made up of 15 unions and central co-operatives and a specialised development organization known as Centro Para la Promoción, la Investigación y Desarrollo Rural Social (CIPRES). FECODESA represents 144 grassroots cooperatives and 5,802 members (2,911 women and 2,891 men).
- El Movimiento Agroecológico Latinoamericano (MAELA) Regional - LAC. MAELA brings together more than 150 institutions or organizations (family farmers, peasants, indigenous people, consumers, NGOs, Educational Institutions and Universities) and raises alternatives to neoliberalism and the globalization of the market economy, as these are exclusive and discriminatory of the cultures and knowledge of our peoples.
The development and adoption of standards, recommendations, diagnostic protocols and phytosanitary treatments is currently the major role of a number of international fora, in FAO but also elsewhere.
- CBD, Convention on Biological Diversity
- CGRFA, Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture
- IPPC, International Plant Protection Convention
- ITPGRFA, International Treaty on Plant genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture
- ITWG-PGRFA, Intergovernmental Technical Working Group on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture
- IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature
- Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing
- UPOV, International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants
- WIPO, World Intellectual Property Organization
- SADC Policy Southern African Development Community
- InforMEA
- DART Project
- Biodiversity Indicators Partnership
- Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework
- FAOLEX FAOLEX is a comprehensive and up-to-date legislative and policy database, one of the world's largest online repositories of national laws, regulations and policies on food, agriculture and natural resources management.
- GODAN The Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition is an initiative that seeks to "support global efforts to make agricultural and nutritionally relevant data available, accessible, and usable for unrestricted use worldwide".
- CGIAR BIG Data Platform Its goal is to harness the capabilities of big data to accelerate and enhance the impact of international agricultural research.
Papers and datasets are the most common outputs of any research activity. Both benefit from Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) being assigned to them in order to make them more easily findable and accessible.
- GoFAIR In 2016, the FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship were published in Scientific Data. The authors intended to provide guidelines to improve the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse of digital assets. The principles emphasise machine-actionability (i.e., the capacity of computational systems to find, access, interoperate, and reuse data with none or minimal human intervention) because humans increasingly rely on computational support to deal with data as a result of the increase in volume, complexity, and creation speed of data.
- International DOI Foundation a not-for-profit membership organization that is the governance and management body for the federation of Registration Agencies providing Digital Object Identifier (DOI) services and registration, and is the registration authority for the ISO standard (ISO 26324) for the DOI system. The DOI system provides a technical and social infrastructure for the registration and use of persistent interoperable identifiers, called DOIs, for use on digital networks.
- DataCite is a leading global non-profit organisation that provides persistent identifiers (DOIs) for research data and other research outputs. Organizations within the research community join DataCite as members to be able to assign DOIs to all their research outputs. This way, their outputs become discoverable and associated metadata is made available to the community. DataCite then develops additional services to improve the DOI management experience, making it easier for our members to connect and share their DOIs with the broader research ecosystem and to assess the use of their DOIs within that ecosystem. DataCite is an active participant in the research community and promotes data sharing and citation through community-building efforts and outreach activities. DOIs assigneed by GLIS are registered by DataCite.
- Crossref makes research outputs easy to find, cite, link, assess, and reuse. Crossref is a not-for-profit membership organization that exists to make scholarly communications better. They rally the community; tag and share metadata; run an open infrastructure; play with technology; and make tools and services—all to help put scholarly content in context.
- Gardian The Global Agricultural Research Data Innovation and Acceleration Network is a data harvester that enables the discovery of publications and datasets from the thirty-odd institutional publications and data repositories across all CGIAR Centers to enable value addition and innovation via data reuse.
- Cambridge Plant Genetic Resources
- Frontiers in Plant Science
- International Journal of Plant Breeding and Crop Science
- International Journal of Plant Breeding and Genetics - Esciencepress
- Journal of Plant biology and Agriculture Sciences
- Journal of Plant Genetics and Breeding
- MDPI - Academic Open Access Publishing
- Nature
- Springer
- BMC Plant Biology
- ResearchGate