Towards resilience through systems-based plant breeding. A review.

How the growing world population can feed itself is a crucial, multi-dimensional problem that goes beyond sustainable development. Crop production will be affected by many changes in its climatic, agronomic, economic, and societal contexts. Therefore, breeders are challenged to produce cultivars that strengthen both ecological and societal resilience by striving for six international sustainability targets: food security, safety and quality; food and seed sovereignty; social justice; agrobiodiversity; ecosystem services; and climate robustness.

Processes underpinning development and maintenance of diversity in rice in West Africa: evidence from combining morphological and molecular markers.

We assessed the interplay of artificial and natural selection in rice adaptation in low-input farming systems in West Africa. Using 20 morphological traits and 176 molecular markers, 182 farmer varieties of rice (Oryza spp.) from 6 West African countries were characterized.

Aroma chemistry of African Oryza glaberrima and Oryza sativa rice and their interspecific hybrids.

Background: To increase rice production in Africa, considerable research has focused on creating interspecific hybrids between African (Oryza glaberrima Steud.) and Asian (O. sativa L.

Robustness and strategies of adaptation among farmer varieties of African Rice (Oryza glaberrima) and Asian Rice (Oryza sativa) across West Africa.

This study offers evidence of the robustness of farmer rice varieties (Oryza glaberrima and O. sativa) in West Africa. Our experiments in five West African countries showed that farmer varieties were tolerant of sub-optimal conditions, but employed a range of strategies to cope with stress.

Evidence for the emergence of new rice types of interspecific hybrid origin in West African farmers' fields.

In West Africa two rice species (Oryza glaberrima Steud. and Oryza sativa L.) co-exist.