News 2016 January
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« Life is short, one must hurry » (N. Vavilov).
Nikolaï Ivanovitch Vavilov (1887-1943) is considered as one of the most famous botanists and geneticists of his time. He was among the first scientists to have understood theimportance of the link between biological diversity and food security of societies; collecting and studying the diversity of plant genetic resources worldwide is a challenge for the future of a productive and sustainable agriculture. The vision of Vavilov, on the steps of Alphonse de Candolle and Darwin, was original at that time, as it was implemented at the world level, what led him to elaborate his theory of centres of origin of cultivated plants. He realized more than 200 missions through 65 countries and collected hundreds of thousands of cultivated varieties. With his collaborators, he set the basis of the genetic research on cultivated plants.
The book (in French) contains two texts of Vavilov:
- Works on the origin of cultivated plants undergone since Darwin (1940, translated from Russian)
- The origin of cultivated plants (1935, translated from English)
Curiously, those texts had never before been published in French.
The introduction by Michel Chauvet explores the relations between science, agriculture and society. It shows the evolution of Vavilov's theory, its topicality and the resulting scientific debates of nowadays. Genetic resources have become as never before power challenges. The availability of the broadest possible diversity for all stakeholders is a condition for allowing each country, each group of farmers to adapt their varieties to answer the manyfold economical, ecological, climatic and society changes.
Nikolaï Vavilov. La théorie des centres d’origine des plantes cultivées. Introduction par Michel Chauvet. Editions Petit Génie, octobre 2015. 176 pages. ISBN: 979-10-93104-08-9. 19 €.
19 November 2015