– New article in Nature Plants (Spring 2017) on “Agrobiodiversity and a Sustainable Food Future” by lab and collaborator in Vietnam. Research copies available upon request (see link).

Karl and Stef de Haan of the Hanoi office of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)have published their article on “Agrobiodiversity and a Sustainable Food Future” in the Spring issue of the journal Nature Plants. Karl and Stef make the case for the timely and vital importance of policy-relevant agrobiodiversity research that integrates the plant, environmental, social, and health sciences. This integrative agrobiodiversity research is needed to respond to global environmental and socioeconomic changes that range from climate change to globalization. They provide the synthesis of new and recent research in order to create their integrative conceptual framework that coalesces around four thematic cornerstones that are both interdisciplinary and policy relevant. These cornerstones are: (1) genetics, ecology, and evolution where contributions incorporate new tools ranging from plant improvement to agroecology; (2) governance including rights-based approaches; (3) food and human health, nutrition, and disease; and (4) analysis of adaptation, vulnerability, resilience, and design capacity in response to global change drivers.

See more on Karl and Stef’s work in the PSU News article “Integrative approach needed to protect crop biodiversity, researcher says,” released May 10, 2017.

The full citation is:
Zimmerer, Karl S., and Stef de Haan, S. 2017. Agrobiodiversity and a sustainable food future. Nature Plants 3: 1-3.
For an individual research copy (pdf format) please contact the GeoSyntheSES Lab contact (meganbaumann@psu.edu).