Towards Responsible Plant Data Linkage: Data Challenges for Agricultural Research and Development
This chapter argues for the importance of considering conceptual and normative commitments when a... more This chapter argues for the importance of considering conceptual and normative commitments when addressing questions of responsible practice in data-intensive agricultural research and development. We consider genetic gain-focused plant breeding strategies that envision a data-intensive mode of breeding in which genomic, environmental and socio-economic data are mobilised for rapid crop variety development. Focusing on socio-economic data linkage, we examine methods of product profiling and how they accommodate gendered dimensions of breeding in the field. Through a comparison with participatory breeding methods, we argue that the conceptual commitments underpinning current methods of integrating socioeconomic data into calculations of genetic gain can preclude the achievement of key social development goals, and that better engagement with participatory approaches can help address this problem. We conclude by identifying three key avenues towards a data-intensive approach to plant ...
Sustainable food production in the context of climate change necessitates diversification of agri... more Sustainable food production in the context of climate change necessitates diversification of agriculture and a more efficient utilization of plant genetic resources. Fonio millet (Digitaria exilis) is an orphan African cereal crop with a great potential for dryland agriculture. Here, we establish high-quality genomic resources to facilitate fonio improvement through molecular breeding. These include a chromosome-scale reference assembly and deep re-sequencing of 183 cultivated and wild Digitaria accessions, enabling insights into genetic diversity, population structure, and domestication. Fonio diversity is shaped by climatic, geographic, and ethnolinguistic factors. Two genes associated with seed size and shattering showed signatures of selection. Most known domestication genes from other cereal models however have not experienced strong selection in fonio, providing direct targets to rapidly improve this crop for agriculture in hot and dry environments.
Abstract The conservation of in situ crop diversity is a key issue to ensure food security. Under... more Abstract The conservation of in situ crop diversity is a key issue to ensure food security. Understanding the processes that shape it is crucial for efficiently managing such diversity. In most rural societies, crop diversity patterns are affected by farmers’ practices of seed exchange, transmission, and selection, but the role of social organization in shaping those practices has been overlooked. This study proposes an ecological anthropology approach to investigate the relation between crop diversity patterns and the social organization of Tharaka farmers in Kenya. The Tharaka are organized in neighborhood-groups, clans, and age-sets. We quantified the influence of these three major social institutions on crop diversity patterns, for both crop species and sorghum landraces. General linear models were used to test the relations between crop species richness and each social factor, while the crop species and sorghum landraces compositions of cropping systems were compared separately through a between-class correspondence analysis. Crop species and sorghum landraces are not randomly distributed among farms, and neighborhood-groups constitute a significant factor organizing crop diversity at both specific and infraspecific levels. Adjacent neighborhood-groups present significantly different crop richness and composition. The results for species were consistent with those obtained for sorghum landraces, confirming that crop diversity was socially structured. The influence of social organization on seed networks and selection processes is discussed.
Agricultural diversification with neglected and underutilized species is a viable way to sustaina... more Agricultural diversification with neglected and underutilized species is a viable way to sustainably increase the productivity of agrosystems. Understanding the social, cultural, and ecological roles of these species is crucial for their promotion. White fonio (<em>Digitaria exilis</em>), a neglected cereal endemic to West African Sahelian countries, is recognized as a crop for the future due to its cultural, nutritional, and economic values. In this study, we described fonio farming systems in Senegal through an ethnobotanical approach. As expected in family farming systems, farmers largely practiced diversified subsistence agriculture on small plots and relied on local seed exchange networks. The importance of fonio varied among agroecological zones, ethnic groups, and gender. In the Groundnut Basin, where agriculture is more mechanized, late-maturing landraces of fonio are cultivated as a cash crop rather than a staple crop. However, in southern Senegal, where food sh...
Identification and characterization of the farmers’ named crop varieties cultivated around the wo... more Identification and characterization of the farmers’ named crop varieties cultivated around the world is a major issue for conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources. Intraspecific diversity is strongly determined by farmers’ socio-cultural environment, but this has little been documented. In this paper, we tested, on a contact zone among three ethnolinguistic groups located on the Mount Kenya region, whether farmers’ socio-cultural differences have an impact on the morphological characteristics of the farmers’ named sorghum varieties. Eighteen qualitative morphological traits of the panicles were measured. We first compared the morphological diversity of the named varieties among ethnolinguistic groups using multivariate analysis of homogeneity of groups’ dispersion and tested their differentiation using permutational multivariate analysis of variance. Discriminant analysis of principal components was then used to categorize the morphological diversity without a pri...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2015
Recent studies investigating the relationship between crop genetic diversity and human cultural d... more Recent studies investigating the relationship between crop genetic diversity and human cultural diversity patterns showed that seed exchanges are embedded in farmers’ social organization. However, our understanding of the social processes involved remains limited. We investigated how farmers’ membership in three major social groups interacts in shaping sorghum seed exchange networks in a cultural contact zone on Mount Kenya. Farmers are members of residence groups at the local scale and of dialect groups clustered within larger ethnolinguistic units at a wider scale. The Chuka and Tharaka, who are allied in the same ethnolinguistic unit, coexist with the Mbeere dialect group in the study area. We assessed farmers’ homophily, propensity to exchange seeds with members of the same group, using exponential random graph models. We showed that homophily is significant within both residence and ethnolinguistic groups. At these two levels, homophily is driven by the kinship system, particul...
Towards Responsible Plant Data Linkage: Data Challenges for Agricultural Research and Development
This chapter argues for the importance of considering conceptual and normative commitments when a... more This chapter argues for the importance of considering conceptual and normative commitments when addressing questions of responsible practice in data-intensive agricultural research and development. We consider genetic gain-focused plant breeding strategies that envision a data-intensive mode of breeding in which genomic, environmental and socio-economic data are mobilised for rapid crop variety development. Focusing on socio-economic data linkage, we examine methods of product profiling and how they accommodate gendered dimensions of breeding in the field. Through a comparison with participatory breeding methods, we argue that the conceptual commitments underpinning current methods of integrating socioeconomic data into calculations of genetic gain can preclude the achievement of key social development goals, and that better engagement with participatory approaches can help address this problem. We conclude by identifying three key avenues towards a data-intensive approach to plant ...
Sustainable food production in the context of climate change necessitates diversification of agri... more Sustainable food production in the context of climate change necessitates diversification of agriculture and a more efficient utilization of plant genetic resources. Fonio millet (Digitaria exilis) is an orphan African cereal crop with a great potential for dryland agriculture. Here, we establish high-quality genomic resources to facilitate fonio improvement through molecular breeding. These include a chromosome-scale reference assembly and deep re-sequencing of 183 cultivated and wild Digitaria accessions, enabling insights into genetic diversity, population structure, and domestication. Fonio diversity is shaped by climatic, geographic, and ethnolinguistic factors. Two genes associated with seed size and shattering showed signatures of selection. Most known domestication genes from other cereal models however have not experienced strong selection in fonio, providing direct targets to rapidly improve this crop for agriculture in hot and dry environments.
Abstract The conservation of in situ crop diversity is a key issue to ensure food security. Under... more Abstract The conservation of in situ crop diversity is a key issue to ensure food security. Understanding the processes that shape it is crucial for efficiently managing such diversity. In most rural societies, crop diversity patterns are affected by farmers’ practices of seed exchange, transmission, and selection, but the role of social organization in shaping those practices has been overlooked. This study proposes an ecological anthropology approach to investigate the relation between crop diversity patterns and the social organization of Tharaka farmers in Kenya. The Tharaka are organized in neighborhood-groups, clans, and age-sets. We quantified the influence of these three major social institutions on crop diversity patterns, for both crop species and sorghum landraces. General linear models were used to test the relations between crop species richness and each social factor, while the crop species and sorghum landraces compositions of cropping systems were compared separately through a between-class correspondence analysis. Crop species and sorghum landraces are not randomly distributed among farms, and neighborhood-groups constitute a significant factor organizing crop diversity at both specific and infraspecific levels. Adjacent neighborhood-groups present significantly different crop richness and composition. The results for species were consistent with those obtained for sorghum landraces, confirming that crop diversity was socially structured. The influence of social organization on seed networks and selection processes is discussed.
Agricultural diversification with neglected and underutilized species is a viable way to sustaina... more Agricultural diversification with neglected and underutilized species is a viable way to sustainably increase the productivity of agrosystems. Understanding the social, cultural, and ecological roles of these species is crucial for their promotion. White fonio (<em>Digitaria exilis</em>), a neglected cereal endemic to West African Sahelian countries, is recognized as a crop for the future due to its cultural, nutritional, and economic values. In this study, we described fonio farming systems in Senegal through an ethnobotanical approach. As expected in family farming systems, farmers largely practiced diversified subsistence agriculture on small plots and relied on local seed exchange networks. The importance of fonio varied among agroecological zones, ethnic groups, and gender. In the Groundnut Basin, where agriculture is more mechanized, late-maturing landraces of fonio are cultivated as a cash crop rather than a staple crop. However, in southern Senegal, where food sh...
Identification and characterization of the farmers’ named crop varieties cultivated around the wo... more Identification and characterization of the farmers’ named crop varieties cultivated around the world is a major issue for conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources. Intraspecific diversity is strongly determined by farmers’ socio-cultural environment, but this has little been documented. In this paper, we tested, on a contact zone among three ethnolinguistic groups located on the Mount Kenya region, whether farmers’ socio-cultural differences have an impact on the morphological characteristics of the farmers’ named sorghum varieties. Eighteen qualitative morphological traits of the panicles were measured. We first compared the morphological diversity of the named varieties among ethnolinguistic groups using multivariate analysis of homogeneity of groups’ dispersion and tested their differentiation using permutational multivariate analysis of variance. Discriminant analysis of principal components was then used to categorize the morphological diversity without a pri...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2015
Recent studies investigating the relationship between crop genetic diversity and human cultural d... more Recent studies investigating the relationship between crop genetic diversity and human cultural diversity patterns showed that seed exchanges are embedded in farmers’ social organization. However, our understanding of the social processes involved remains limited. We investigated how farmers’ membership in three major social groups interacts in shaping sorghum seed exchange networks in a cultural contact zone on Mount Kenya. Farmers are members of residence groups at the local scale and of dialect groups clustered within larger ethnolinguistic units at a wider scale. The Chuka and Tharaka, who are allied in the same ethnolinguistic unit, coexist with the Mbeere dialect group in the study area. We assessed farmers’ homophily, propensity to exchange seeds with members of the same group, using exponential random graph models. We showed that homophily is significant within both residence and ethnolinguistic groups. At these two levels, homophily is driven by the kinship system, particul...
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Papers by Christian Leclerc