GROWING DIVERSITY

Activists present their experiences of managing plant genetic resources. The contributors document the achievements of farmers in developing crop varieties tailored to their needs, and demonstrate how these approaches can be built upon.

David Cooper works in plant genetic resources at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

Renée Velve began working on biodiversity issues in the early 1980s, when she became active with French groups fighting for farmers' rights to use local seeds. For 15 years she was based in the Philippines, helping carry out GRAIN's global programme work. She helps run the open-publishing websites bilaterals.org and farmlandgrab.org, and helps with the overall coordination of GRAIN.

Henk Hobbelink is an agronomist by training. In the 1980s he worked with farmers in Peru on sustainable pest management and worked with Dutch and European NGOs drawing attention to the importance of agricultural biodiversity for the future of farming. He is the coordinator of GRAIN, and as such is responsible for the overall functioning of the organization as well as conducting global trends research, writing and outreach activities.