Introduction

The protection and sustainable management of biodiversity, in particular plant genetic resources (PGR) is crucial to achieving Goal 7 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Specifically, target 9, which integrates the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and aims to reverse the loss of environmental resources. The protection of PGR is crucial to the adaptation of the agriculture sector as PGR declines worldwide due to changes in land use, land degradation, monocrop practice in intensive agriculture, pollution, contamination by genetically engineered genes, and other environmental changes. According to the Plant Conservation Report, two-thirds of the world's plant species are in danger of extinction with pressure from the growing human population, habitat modification and deforestation, over-exploitation, the spread of invasive alien species, pollution and the growing impacts of climate change (Convention on Biological Diversity 2009). Policy makers are now becoming more aware that the decline of PGR will reduce the ecosystem's ability to produce food, resist pests and diseases, and withstand the stress brought about by climate change.

The remaining PGR are preserved in limited areas such as ecological reserves and other protected areas under public funding. However, since such systems are very costly, to date, no country has put in place a comprehensive system to protect its PGR. Apart from PGR being preserved under public funding, another often-forgotten source is the PGR being protected by poor farmers practicing traditional farming, largely in the remote marginal areas of developing countries. With globalization and rapid infrastructure development in developing countries, these marginal areas are rapidly opening up and traditional farming systems are being transformed into commercial systems based on monocrop cultivation of high-yielding varieties, leading to rapid decline of PGR. While poverty reduction through modernization of farming systems is imminent, alternative agriculture development strategies to enhance and preserve PGR must be identified. Priority should be given to market-based strategies that can achieve a sustainable and wide scope of impacts.

This paper reviews issues associated with PGR and discusses organic agriculture as a possible alternative development strategy to preserve the PGR now being protected by poor farmers. Part 2 introduces the value and importance of genetic diversity in PGR. It also explains the causes of its rapid erosion, its vulnerability, and the threat to biodiversity of global climate change, and the consequences of its erosion.

Part 3 is a presentation of current ways of preserving PGR and shows how small farmers can make a contribution to gene bank preservation. It describes how smallholder farmers and communities have the capacity to help preserve landraces and traditional plants—rich in rare and useful genes—thanks to their indigenous knowledge of the management of landraces and their technical skills in seeds conservation. It concludes with a description of the ways in which partnerships between farmers, research institutes and the public sector could be very relevant to ensuring a safe preservation of remaining diversity.

Part 4 introduces certified organic farming as a tool for protecting PGR and shows how this practice can encourage smallholder farmers to fulfill their important role of protector of the richness of the genes contained in landraces and traditional plants through market-based incentives.

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