21st COE Program Seminar
Public Seminar on African Area Studies

Date: Thursday, January 25, 2007 15:00 - 17:00

Venue: Room 307 on the fourth floor of CSEAS Common Building

Title: "Magnitude of genetic diversity and patterns of their distribution in some Ethiopian plant domesticates and their impact on the development and livelihood of rural community "

Speaker: Prof. Endashaw Bekele(Addis Ababa University )
(Visiting Prof., Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University)

The complex factors that determine food security and improve the livelihood of poor farmers through sustainable utilization of genetic diversity are presented as: linkage between the natural and the various agricultural ecosystems, the level of crop gene pools in the traditional farming systems, the existence of genetic resources in indigenous domesticates and their association to each agro-ecological regions. The importance of studying the current genetic diversity of plants animals and indeed a human community to extract information on past population parameters and on the history of adaptation to changing environment, disease complex, evolution of cultural values based on the multiplicities of domesticates and their diversities is highlighted. The unique position of Ethiopia as a center of origin and diversification of several domesticates is outlined. The genetic diversity and use value of three Ethiopian plant domesticates namely Guizotia abyssinica( commonly called noug or niger seed is one of an indigenous Ethiopian oil crop with multipurpose use value), Sorghum bicolor and Coffea arabica are presented to show their impact on the livelihood and food security of farmers.