ABSTRACT
Agricultural biodiversity, comprising plant, livestock, aquatic and forest genetic diversity, as well as micro-organisms and invertebrates, spans the genetic, species and ecosystems levels. Many interacting biological, environmental, social and economic processes determine how agricultural biodiversity changes over time. Hence, a broad range of organizations and institutions, in multiple sectors, are involved in, or influence, the conservation and use of this diversity locally, nationally and internationally. However, only a few organizations, in particular genebanks and to some extent botanic gardens, have the conservation and use of this diversity as their primary mandate. Therefore, building capacity for the conservation and use of agricultural biodiversity necessarily involves many organizations and institutions that have core missions other than the conservation and use of agricultural biodiversity, usually across multiple sectors (described in Box 41.1 Three levels of capacity). This raises two challenges: the need to operate across multiple sectors in integrated landscapes, and to integrate agricultural biodiversity into research and development agendas within each sector, be it agriculture, forestry, biodiversity conservation, nutrition and so on.
