International Symposium on Agrobiodiversity for Sustainable Development

Bioversity International and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences will be organising the ”International Symposium on Agrobiodiversity for Sustainable Development”,  03-04 June 2013 in Beijing, China.

The symposium will focus on the important role of agricultural biodiversity in agroecological intensification for supporting productive and resilient farming systems to improve livelihoods of smallholder farmers. The symposium will also aim to understand the local cultural values in enhancing productivity through the use of traditional crop varieties, traditional farming practices and climate change response strategies.

Please read this PDF document or contact the organising committee directly at email hidden; JavaScript is required for more information. Participants need to submit this registration form to the organisers before 30 April 2013. The local costs of accommodation and food will be covered by the organisers for registered participants presenting scientific posters.

Plant Genetic Resources and Seeds: Community Resilience in the Face of Change

The Wageningen University and Research Centre for Development Innovation (CDI) will be organising a training programme on “Plant Genetic Resources and Seeds: Community Resilience in the Face of Change”, from 28 October to 16 November 2013, in Jeypore and Chennai, India.

The overall objective of this training programme is to enhance participants’ capabilities to associate Community Biodiversity Management (CBM) as integrated strategies for managing Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGFRA) and building community resilience towards climate change.

Full travel, board and lodging expenditures would be provided by the Netherlands Fellowship Programmes to successful applicants. Deadline for fellowship application is 07 May 2013 through fellowships for short courses on “Scholarship Online“.

Please read this PDF document or visit the official website of CDI for more information.

Together with a number of international and Spanish partners, CFF co-organised  the “International Seminar Crops for the XXI Century”, held last December in Cordoba, Spain. The seminar resulted in the Cordoba Declaration, which calls for more diversity in agricultural and food systems, principally through greater use of neglected and underutilised species (NUS). Specifically the declaration proposes action along these lines:

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  Farmers threshing quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa), near Puno, Peru.

  Improving education and awareness to ensure that the values of a much wider range of NUS are recognized by all society;

• Increasing recognition and support for small scale and family farmers, women and men, in maintaining diversified and resilient agricultural systems;
• Facilitating the conservation, access, availability, use and exchange of seeds by farmers;
• Promoting formal and informal research and plant breeding to realize the full potential of NUS;
• Improving access to markets and stimulating demand for a wider range of NUS, while ensuring that benefits are shared fairly.

UK DFID Logo

UK Aid Logo

The Department for International Development (DFID) of the UK invites applications for the DFID Graduate Recruitment Scheme 2013.

Successful applicants will enroll in a paid 50 week development placement, where they will work with experienced professionals on specific projects – contributing to evaluating where, when and how DFID delivers the UK’s aid programme. The deadline for applications is 12 March 2013.

Please visit the official website of DFID Graduate Recruitment Scheme 2013 for more information or direct your enquiries to email hidden; JavaScript is required.

The Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, is offering a number of PhD scholarships in the area of food security (crop science, biodiversity, conservation) to outstanding candidates from Africa, Asia and South America. The scholarships are funded by the Louis Dreyfus Foundation and cover tuition fees as well as living expenses for a total period of three years.

Application deadline for this round is 18 January 2013, and the final closing round will be on 08 March 2013. Full details of the scholarships and the graduate training programme can be found at: www.plants.ox.ac.uk/plants/students/postgraduates/Louis-Dreyfus.aspx