Tropical Fruit Tree Diversity

Farmers have developed a range of agricultural practices to sustainably use and maintain a wide diversity of crop species in many parts of the world. This book documents good practices innovated by farmers and collects key reviews on good practices from global experts, not only from the case study countries but also from Brazil, China and other parts of Asia and Latin America. A good practice for diversity is defined as a system, organization or process that, over time and space, maintains, enhances and creates crop genetic diversity, and ensures its availability to and from farmers and other users. Drawing on experiences from a UNEP-GEF project on "Conservation and Sustainable Use of Wild and Cultivated Tropical Fruit Tree Diversity for Promoting Livelihoods, Food Security and Ecosystem Services", with case studies from India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, the authors show how methods for identifying good practices are still evolving and challenges in scaling-up remain. They identify key principles effective as a strategy for mainstreaming good practice into development efforts. Few books draw principles and lessons learned from good practices. This book fills this gap by combining good practices from the research project on tropical fruit trees with chapters from external experts to broaden its scope and relevance.

"What is needed today is to understand and implement different and innovative approaches – far different from the conventional green revolution type of crop improvement. This book shows the way to make this a reality. It demonstrates how to integrate the innovation of smallholder farmers into large-scale research for development by selecting farmers' best fruit varieties, employing locally developed good practices and restoring degraded lands with diverse fruit species that at the same time sustainably improve the diets of the poor." – From the foreword by Ann Tutwiler, Director General, Bioversity International

Bhuwon Sthapit is an in situ conservation specialist at Bioversity International based in Pokhara, Nepal.  Hugo A.H. Lamers is an associate scientist at Bioversity International based in New Delhi, India.  V. Ramanatha Rao has worked in plant genetic resources at ICRISAT (Hyderabad, India) and at Bioversity International (Italy, Singapore and Malaysia).  Arwen Bailey is Science Editor at Bioversity International based in Rome, Italy.