Molding maize: the shaping of a crop diversity landscape in the western highlands of Guatemala

Interhousehold variability and its effects on seed circulation networks: a case study from northern Cameroon

“…While results from both our research and existing literature (Louette et al 1997, Zimmerer 2003, van Etten 2006 indicate that seed systems are structurally open, little attention has been given to the issues related to using SNA methods, which were developed for closed or complete networks (Wasserman and Faust 1994), in studying seed circulation networks. Beyond any doubt, SNA offers powerful and promising tools for understanding local seed systems.…”

Genetic diversity of maize (Zea mays L. ssp. mays) in communities of the western highlands of Guatemala: geographical patterns and processes

“…A recent origin for the demonstrated genetic divergence between maize populations of different villages of highland Guatemala has historical grounds, because many rural settlements were created in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth century (Van Etten 2006a). Even so, the study has been able to demonstrate the effect of the contemporary localised seed exchange, which characterises maize agricultural systems in highland Guatemala (Van Etten and De Bruin in press), and other parts of Mesoamerica, including Mexico.…”

“…mays) in an area of the western highlands of Guatemala. For this crop and area, previous studies have developed insights and hypotheses about seed exchange (Van Etten 2006a, 2006bVan Etten and De Bruin, in press). The present chapter evaluates part of these hypotheses using genetic data.…”

The landscape technology of spate irrigation amid development changes: Assembling the links to resources, livelihoods, and agrobiodiversity-food in the Bolivian Andes

“…This step of increasing scientific analysis and policy awareness of spate irrigation is also significant given the commonplace oversight of its chief landscapetechnological attributes (detailed in Section 7) including: (i) lack of visibility of the landscape technology as perceived by waterresource planners and development specialists; (ii) disregard of 22 Findings of such co-existence with intensified water management and commercial cropping is counter to the well-placed assumption of global-change, rooted understandably in Green Revolution scenarios, that irrigation-related development is antithetical to high-agrobiodiversity cropping (Green et al, 2005;Luers et al, 2006;Matson et al, 1997;Matson and Vitousek, 2006). This perspective is being expanded to account for the complex and often partial pathways of agrobiodiversity loss (''genetic erosion'') (Bellon et al, 2006;Brookfield, 2001;Brookfield and Padoch, 1994;Brush, 2004;Smale, 2005;van Etten, 2006;Wood and Lenné , 1997;Zimmerer, 2010a). Yet the continued cropping of agrobiodiversity in community-based irrigation cannot be assumed (Zimmerer, 2010a(Zimmerer, , 2010b, notwithstanding the persistence of ''traditional'' water resource management (Dietz et al, 2003;Ostrom and Gardner, 1993).…”