The role of plant breeding in adapting crops to climate changes that affect food production in developing countries is recognized as extremely important and urgent, alongside other agronomic, socio-economic and policy adaptation pathways. To enhance plant breeders’ capacity to respond to climate challenges, it is acknowledged that they need to be able to access and use as much genetic diversity as they can get. Through an analysis of data from a global survey, we explore if and how public breeders in selected developing countries are responding to climate challenges through a renewed or innovative use of plant genetic resources, particularly in terms of types of material incorporated into their breeding work as well as sources of such germplasm. It also looks at the possible limitations breeders encounter in their efforts towards exploring diversity for adaptation. Breeders are clearly considering climate challenges. In general, their efforts are aimed at intensifying their breeding work on traits that they were already working on before climate change was so widely discussed. Similarly, the kinds of germplasm they use, and the sources from which they obtain it, do not appear to have changed significantly over the course of recent years. The main challenges breeders faced in accessing germplasm were linked to administrative/legal factors, particularly related to obtaining genetic resources across national borders. They also underscore technical challenges such as a lack of appropriate technologies to exploit germplasm sets such as crop wild relatives and landraces. Addressing these limitations will be crucial to fully enhance the role of public sector breeders in helping to adapt vulnerable agricultural systems to the challenges of climate change.

This paper discusses the dimension and intensity of poverty among the agro-pastoral households and development options based on survey data collected in 2011 from 180 randomly selected agro-pastoral households of Aysaita district. The study used the Foster, Greer and Thorbecke (FGT) index to examine the incidence of poverty, the poverty gap and severity of poverty. It also employed the Tobit regression model to analyse the determinants of intensity of poverty in the study area. Results show that about 52.8% of the sampled households have been living below poverty line with poverty gap and poverty severity indices of 0.16 and 0.07, respectively. The Gini coefficient is about 0.31. Some of the key determinants of intensity of poverty among agro-pastoral households are found to be diversification of livestock holding, and access to irrigated land, improved forage and market centers. The paper concludes by indicating that development interventions need to engage in diversifying herd per household, improving access to irrigation, regulating credit diversion and promoting off-farm employment to reduce poverty among the agro-pastoral households.

This study investigates the tradeoffs that providers of genetic materials make between constructing a benefits arrangement and establishing use restrictions. The analysis makes use of individual‐ and project‐level data collected from university and government researchers in the United States. Results show, for instance, that although most genetic resources are exchanged without up‐front payments, when up‐front payments are required for transfer, recipients are less likely to be expected to contribute monetary or non‐monetary benefits after receipt of material. Recipients are also less likely to be subjected to ex post restrictions on the use of the materials they receive. Conversely, when recipients are expected to provide information from project results, up‐front payments for genetic materials are less likely to be assessed. The paper concludes that up‐front payments can be applied in ways that avoid complex restrictions and obligations that may hinder the exchange of genetic materials, public research, and further innovation.

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