There are important reasons why agrobiodiversity is currently a trendy topic. On one hand there is the prospect of dramatic transformation in world agriculture through the technology of genetic modification of material preserved in gene banks. On the other hand is the argument against the spread of intensive monoculture in agricultural practice, favoring instead a view of sustainability through multiple cropping systems with land races maintained by the local knowledge of farming communities. Managing Agrobiodiversity offers food for thought on the pros and cons of ex situand in situ approaches.

Produced in conjunction with the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, this book brings together research from the Hindu Kush-Himalaya region on the state of its agrobiodiversity. Forty short chapters are divided into 7 parts covering themes concerned with the relationship between agrobiodiversity and cultural diversity, processes of market transformation acting on subsistence cropping, and management issues for conservation of the variety of domesticated plants and animals.

The editors remark on the lack of information regarding loss, replacement, or replenishment of agrobiodiversity, and the book's principal value is in giving an impressive variety of case studies and perspectives. Inevitably there are disagreements of interpretation between some of the chapters (such as on the questionable sustainability of commercial fruit production in Himachal Pradesh), but some key themes emerge. More agrobiodiversity is found in rain-fed than irrigated agriculture, and in attempts to transform subsistence agriculture through introductions of new varieties, there has been little attention paid to the consequent genetic erosion or the potential value of local crops. Even where germplasm is being collected, as in China's modern gene banks, a very small proportion is mountain-derived (Chapter 25). Similarly with livestock, B.R. and D. P. Rasali (Chapter 27) argue that the characterization of “non-descript breeds with low production potential” has prevented investigation of their production performance under optimal conditions. The benefit of thinking across simple local/exotic distinctions can be seen in an example of fruit growing given by Tej Partap (Chapter 7) referring to the practice in Swat, Pakistan, of avoiding soil-borne disease through a double grafting of apple cultivars onto local sorbus and hawthorn rootstock.

Such examples of innovation and the instances of circumspect incorporation of certain new crops give a sense of dynamism to local practice. The discussion of assessment criteria for new rice varieties by villagers in Nepal, addressing qualities of taste, cooking, marketability, threshing, and storability is a case in point (Chapter 30 by B.R. Sthapit and K.D. Joshi). This leads me, though, to question the editors' framing of their comment that “a reversal to the old pattern of subsistence farming” (p 8) will not suffice in meeting the needs of the present day. Just what and when was the old pattern? Are we talking about the present generation's memories of their grandparents' accounts of the old days, or should “traditional” refer to pre-New World crop introductions of potato, chili, and maize? Many chapters invoke the idea of a relatively static baseline past, but the presence of these last crops in such a scenario of tradition reveals that notion to be misplaced. “Traditional” is a movable feast and refers to nothing as such but an image of a different moment. Detailed studies of Himalayan agronomic history (eg, Dobremez 1986) show that, even in out-of-the-way valleys, change has been continuously in process. “Tradition” is first and foremost a rhetoric of superior modernity. As Mr Jardhari of the Save the Seed Movement in Tehri-Garhwal says (Chapter 33), farmers have been brainwashed into thinking of practices like the baranaja (12 types of seed) cropping system for meeting domestic needs rather than commercial profit as “backward.”

The editors themselves proclaim that “the research and development institutions of the HKH countries convey the impression that local land races are always inferior and a symbol of subsistence farming” (p 13). Exotic breeds and cultivars have been promoted with little appreciation of their biodiversity effect. The case of the Himalayan honeybee receives attention by U. Partap and L. R. Verma (Chapter 31). In terms of honey yields, the introduced European Apis mellifera indeed produces more, but the advantage of the now endangered local Apis cerana is its tolerance to cold, its not requiring winter sugar feeding, and its significantly earlier seasonal pollination activity on which many fruit trees and vegetables depend. This example clearly shows the need to see beyond simple economic specialization, whether of honey or orchards, and be conscious of the interlinkages and dynamics of diverse species communities.

At the heart of the whole issue of agrobiodiversity is a relationship of mutuality between people and species. Sthapit and Joshi refer to “biological and social processes of crop evolution” (p 313) in arguing against a total reliance on gene banks for conservation. Not only are there important reasons to doubt the ability of gene banks to maintain or keep available genetic capital, but it should be said that genes are only half the story. The other half is the anthropogenic developmental environment in which organisms grow, interact, and reproduce. I found the contributions of the book on this unique relational environment not fully satisfying. P. K. Shrestha (Chapter 14) makes significant points about systematic gender blindness in seed sector activities in Nepal, ignoring farmers' needs and growing environments. Ramakrishnan et al (Chapter 2) highlight the impact of land privatization on shortened jhum cultivation cycles, and the editors refer to disappearing knowledge of practices such as green manuring. However, the qualitative intimacy of people, plants, and animals that keeps farming communities alive can rarely be perceived in the book. The pleasure of first tasting the new local maize crop straight from the roasted cob, the sharing of colostrum among close kin after a calf is born, the household dedication of fermented grain marking the initiation of a new harvest season, and the ribald exchanges accompanying cooperative transplanting work groups all deserve to be recognized as formative contexts in which people's relationships with and attention to distinctions and qualities of agrobiodiversity are engaged. It is through these experiences and contexts that knowledge is transmitted. Such knowledge cannot be stored away in the bibliographic equivalents of gene banks. Chapter 34 by A. Rastogi is a welcome stylistic exception, contrasting opposing approaches to pest control represented by priestly chanting on one hand and the application of DDT on the other.

The contemporary challenge to think about policy issues regarding agrobiodiversity is well discussed in the final chapters. Should the HKH countries form a common platform to resist biopiracy? How can custodian communities of agrobiodiversity receive benefit from the genes that biotech companies protect with patents? Will “mountain farmers” rights receive legal recognition parallel to that of intellectual property rights? A sobering case is presented in Chapter 36, warning against unseen effects of conservation laws. The kuth plant cultivated for its medicinal root in Lahul was prohibited from trade in the 1980s due to its threatened state in the wild, and this enterprising example of farmers initiating conservation through cultivation fell victim to bureaucratic suffocation. The role of the state in conservation interventions has to be considered circumspectly. The degree of agrobiodiversity that currently exists in the mountains is probably due to the historical inability of the state to intervene effectively in other programs of development extension. Where strict biodiversity conservation has been implemented, knowledge of agrobiodiversity is threatened.

Managing Agrobiodiversity can be strongly recommended as an accessible collection of vantage points on a theme that the HKH countries need to respond to with some urgency if their centuries of farmers' knowledge is not to lose out to biotech imperialism.