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PREFACE

This is the first study that estimates the potential production for any underutilised crop on a global basis. Our long-term aim is to demonstrate how this approach, initially for bambara groundnut, can be used to assess the potential productivity of many underutilised food crops at locations beyond their current distribution.

The most significant contributions from this study are the integration of a weather simulator and a crop simulation model into a Geographical Information System (GIS) to predict potential production of bambara groundnut over the globe. The integration came through a coincidence of interests. FAO needed to improve the knowledge and better use of underutilised crops that can contribute to the food security of the world's poorest people. For the University of Nottingham it was an opportunity to provide a geographic basis for their existing crop model that had been refined by the third author so that predictions of bambara groundnut potential could be extended to new sites.

Integration of the weather generator and model into a GIS was based on the experiences gained by the second author in using fish growth models to estimate potential for fish farming in Africa.
(FAO, 1998, available at www.fao.org/docrep/W8522e/W8522E00.htm)

For more information, please contact:

WAICENT Manager
Library and Documentation Systems Division,
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Viale delle Terme di Caracalla,
00100 Rome, Italy
[email protected]




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