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Research and Preservation of Traditional Knowledge
Scholars learn ancestral agricultural practices. It is a fundamental exchange because that's where the secret lies: seeds are not enough. The heritage of crop cultivation know-how from these seeds is also needed, the wisdom of the farmers who, generation after generation, hand down what they learned "on the field." For this reason the CIP has created "The world geography of the potato", a database containing information, region by region. From climate zones to culinary preferences, everything is important before one can send a potato seed to the other side of the world. Because if in a given geographic area the potato has always been used to make bread, what is needed would be a floury variety suitable for mashing, rather than one to be parboiled.
In short, production and post-production, meaning storage, distribution, preparation and use are to be considered. That's why at the CIP biology, chemistry and agronomy are side by side with sociology, anthropology and economics. All of which share one fundamental idea: the results of the research, meaning the products and the technologies developed, must remain freely available to all their possible beneficiaries in developing countries. The same goes for the bank: the seeds that are stored there are not the exclusive property of the center but are completely public and available to anybody. To guarantee this, the CIP has signed a historical treaty with indigenous Andean communities to hand control of their agricultural resources back the local people.
(16/06/2006)
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