A theoretical model is developed and applied to the search for disease and pest resistance in ex situ collections of wheat genetic resources, employing actual data on frequency distributions, disease losses, and search costs. Experiments developed from case studies clarify several misperceptions...

This paper reports the results of a study undertaken to estimate the economic impact in developing countries of efforts by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) to breed leaf rust resistant spring bread wheat varieties since 1973. The challenge in estimating these...

The spatial distribution of modern varieties, and the genes they embody, has economic value because it affects crop productivity from year to year. Since farmers choose varieties based on observable traits rather than the genes they cannot see, a first step in understanding the spatial...

The Punjab of India is an historical source of key wheat genetic resources in national and global plant breeding, and a focus of concerns about the abandonment of local varieties during the Green Revolution. Much of the wheat area in Punjab was already planted with earlier products of modern...

List of Figures -- List of Tables -- List of Contributing Authors -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- I Introduction -- 1 Farmers, Gene Banks, and Crop Breeding: Introduction and Overview 3 M. Smale, M. Bellon, and P. L. Pingal -- 2 Definition and Measurement of Crop Diversity for Economic Analysis...