Cleveland, DA, Soleri, D. 2002. Introduction: farmers, scientists and plant breeding: knowledge, practice, and the possibilities for collaboration, in Farmers, Scientists and Plant Breeding: Integrating Knowledge and Practice. Edited by Cleveland, DA, Soleri, D, pp. 1-18. Oxon, UK: CAB International.

ABSTRACT
Control over management of the world's resources is increasingly contested because of economic, political and biophysical globalization, and increasing demands of a growing population of more than six billion. This has led to new interest in indigenous or traditional knowledge in many areas, including agriculture and plant breeding. Farmers were the first plant breeders, beginning with domestication of plants over 12 thousand years ago. Modern, scientific plant breeding developed in the last two centuries, and has become increasingly separated from farmers, especially in non-industrial regions. Plant breeding systems consist not only of crop genotypes and growing environments, but of the social structures in which plant breeding is carried out, and the knowledge of farmers and scientists. Because of the challenge to make plant breeding and agriculture more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable, there is increasing interest in reuniting farmer and scientific plant breeding.