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Smallholder farmers are important managers of global crop diversity. However, agricultural modernization is changing farming practices and raising questions about the socio-ecological factors that support crop diversity. In the context of the semi-arid High Atlas Mountains in Morocco, we explored determinants of crop diversity through a cross-sectional survey and farmer interviews in villages adopting new crops such as apples. Through a multiple linear regression analysis and farmer interviews, we found that market participation, land holdings, and water access influenced crop diversity. We highlight the importance of water access for crop diversity, especially in semi-arid regions with uneven hydrological resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmer-to-farmer seed transfers are important for plant domestication, the dissemination of improved crops and in building and maintaining agricultural diversity. Seed sharing may be conceptualized as networks through which planting material flows and landraces are disseminated and conserved. To date, research on seed sharing networks has focused on sociograms and network measures to describe their structure and key actors within them; their bivariate or multivariate correlates have been studied using conventional statistics. We conducted a study of home garden agrobiodiversity and seed networks in three Achuar communities along the upper Corrientes River in Peru. We examine the distribution of home garden crop species within and across communities and apply multivariate techniques within Social Network Analysis (SNA) to analyse the formation and structure of seed networks and to identify key actors in seed sharing. Of particular interest is the relationship among crop diversity, farmer expertise, kinship, and seed sharing behavior. Our results point to the importance of kinship relations, community size, and the 'knowledge-plant transfer' nexus in shaping seed networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which explores the impact of seed exchange in the changing agricultural landscape in the Gamo highlands in Ethiopia. The study focuses on how seed exchange practices affect crop diversity and why these practices are changing. It explores how these practices differ among locations, individual farms and agroecological zones. It suggests that the patterns of seed exchange can have positive effects on crop diversity in the short term.