Agrobiodiversity: people and plants. Analysis tools and methods

Of the 283 applications from various regions of the world, a total of 24 students and professionals from the South (14 countries) were selected to participate in the international training course « Agrobiodiversity: Men and Plants. Analytical tools and methods » being held in Montpellier-Carnon in November 2008.
Jointly organized by IRD and Cirad in partnership with several national and international institutions (e.g., Agropolis International, Bioversity international), the international training course was funded by Agropolis Fondation. Trainers were mostly scientists from the Montpellieran scientific community, but some of them came from NARS (Guinea), international organizations (Bioversity, FAO) and from other French labs (AgroParistech, CNRS, etc).
Given in French, the training course aimed to assist students and professionals from the South to:
• Discover methods and tools for a multidisciplinary approach of diversity at different levels (plants, agrosystems, societies, knowledge, and practices)
• Understand its advantages and limitations
• Locate their projects in the complex scientific and political context of biodiversity utilisation and preservation
After a series of introductive conferences on the first day, four days were mostly dedicated to population genetics, combining lectures and hands-on. This first week was spent on the Lavalette campus. The second week focused on social and cultural components of agrobiodiversity research, during a stay in Carnon.
Numerous contacts were developed during this course, between trainers and trainees, but also among trainees and among trainers. The evaluation survey was very positive. It led to organize the 2nd Agrobiodiversity course in 2010, as a training activity supported by the ARCAD flagship project. Il was held in Rabat, Morocco, thanks to the kind invitation of colleagues from the Institut Agronomique et Vétérinaire Hassan II.