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Crop wild relatives (CWRs) have provided breeders with several 'game-changing' traits or genes that have boosted crop resilience and global agricultural production. Advances in breeding and genomics have accelerated the identification of valuable CWRs for use in crop improvement. The enhanced genetic diversity of breeding pools carrying optimum combinations of favorable alleles for targeted crop-growing regions is crucial to sustain genetic gain. In parallel, growing sequence information on wild genomes in combination with precise gene-editing tools provide a fast-track route to transform CWRs into ideal future crops. Data-informed germplasm collection and management strategies together with adequate policy support will be equally important to improve access to CWRs and their sustainable use to meet food and nutrition security targets.

We assess the impact of corruption on firm growth using the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) data on Nigerian firms for the periods 2006 and 2008. We measure corruption as firms’ informal payments to get things done faster and bypass due process. Firm growth is measured as sales growth of firms. To address endogeneity issues and the possibility of measurement error, we use industry averages of firms’ informal payments as an instrument in a Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) estimation. The results we obtain for both 2006 and 2008 confirm that informal payments substantially hinder firm growth in Nigeria. The results are robust and still hold after controlling for city variation and omitting outliers. The findings suggest that in the quest to improve firm growth, measures that focus on implementing frameworks that shorten the duration required for documentation and other firm-related services provided by the government would discourage informal payments and thus, improve firms’ sales growth.

Genetic variation is a source of phenotypic diversity and is a major driver of evolutionary diversification. Heritable variation was observed and used thousands of years ago in the domestication of plants and animals. The mechanisms that govern the inheritance of traits were later described by Mendel. In the early decades of the twentieth century, scientists showed that the relatively slow rate of natural mutation could be increased by several orders of magnitude by treating Drosophila and cereals with X-rays. What is striking about these achievements is that they came in advance of experimental evidence that DNA is the heritable material. This highlights one major advantage of induced mutations for crop breeding: prior knowledge of genes or gene function is not required to successfully create plants with improved traits and to release new varieties. Indeed, mutation induction has been an important tool for crop breeding since the release of the first mutant variety of tobacco in the 1930s. In addition to plant mutation breeding, induced mutations have been used extensively for functional genomics in model organisms and crops. Novel reverse-genetic strategies, such as Targeting Induced Local Lesions IN Genomes (TILLING), are being used for the production of stable genetic stocks of mutant plant populations such as Arabidopsis, barley, soybean, tomato and wheat. These can be kept for many years and screened repeatedly for different traits. Robust and efficient methods are required for the seamless integration of induced mutations in breeding and functional genomics studies. This chapter provides an overview of the principles and methodologies that underpin the set of protocols and guidelines for the use of induced mutations to improve crops.

The options for increasing food production by at least 70% over the next four decades so as to keep pace with a rapidly increasing human population are bedeviled by erratic climatic conditions, depleted arable lands, dwindling water resources and by the significant environmental and health costs for increasing the use of agrochemicals. Enhanced productivities through “smart” crop varieties that yield more with fewer inputs is a viable option. However, the genetic similarities amongst crop varieties—which render entire cropping systems vulnerable to the same stresses—coupled with unvarying parental materials limit the possibilities for uncovering novel alleles of genes and, hence, assembling new gene combinations to break yield plateaux and enhance resilience. Induced mutation unmasks novel alleles that are harnessed to breed superior crop varieties. The historical antecedents, theoretical and practical considerations, and the successes of induced mutations in crop improvement are reviewed along with how induced mutagenesis underpins plant functional genomics. The roles of cell and molecular biology techniques in enhancing the efficiencies for the induction, detection and deployment of mutation events are also reviewed. Also, the integration of phenomics into induced mutagenesis and the use of pre-breeding for facilitating the incorporation of mutants into crop improvement are advocated.

Global food security could be imperilled by the combined pressures from the effects of continually evolving climatic conditions, demographics and other socio-economic factors, the demands of the livestock, bioenergy and fibre industries for food-based substrates, the static or decreasing availability of natural resources for agriculture and the impracticality of increased use of economically and environmentally costly agricultural inputs. The optimal harnessing of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) in manners that translate their repertoire of hidden potentials into significantly enhanced crop productivities has been severally identified as crucial to achieving the required considerably significant increases in food production. The scope of the problems and the plausible means for addressing them compel the devising of novel and more efficient ways for deploying PGRFA in need-based crop improvement programmes. We posit a continuum approach to the management of PGRFA which links seamlessly the effective conservation and access to PGRFA through their use in developing superior and resilient crop varieties to the provision of their high-quality seeds and planting materials to the growers. To achieve the mainstreaming of this paradigm, we propose the institutionalization of overarching national PGRFA strategies that prescribe result-oriented action plans spanning above three components of the management of PGRFA for a country's priority crops. We also describe the strategy as a means for identifying and assigning responsibilities to critical stakeholders and providing for the governance of all aspects of PGRFA activities over specific time frames. Steps to developing and adopting a national PGRFA strategy are also suggested.

Cassava (Manihot esculenta) is a major food staple for nearly 600 million people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Major losses in yield result from biotic and abiotic stresses that include diseases such as Cassava Mosaic Disease (CMD) and Cassava Bacterial Blight (CBB), drought, and acid soils. Additional losses also occur from deterioration during the post-harvest storage of roots. To help cassava breeders overcome these obstacles, the scientific community has turned to modern genomics approaches to identify key genetic characteristics associated with resistance to these yield-limiting factors. One approach for developing a genomics program requires the development of ESTs (expressed sequence tags). To date, nearly 23,000 ESTs have been developed from various cassava tissues, and genotypes. Preliminary analysis indicates existing EST resources contain at least 6000-7000 unigenes. Data presented in this report indicate that the cassava ESTs will be a valuable resource for the study of genetic diversity, stress resistance, and growth and development, not only in cassava, but also other members of the Euphorbiaceae family.

A significant number of studies reported linkages between ethical moral reasoning and transformational leadership (TFL) style, but questioned its moral foundation based on shared values and ethics. Thus, the issue of public leaders’ and subordinates’ degree of moral judgment and TFL behavior as perceived by followers is explored. The Defining Issues Test (DIT-2) and the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ X5) were completed by leaders and subordinates severely (Avolio & Bass, 2004; Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau, & Thoma, 1999). Path analysis of the structural model indicates positive significant statistical relationship between cognitive moral development (CMD) and TFL style (β = 0.120, t = 1.286, p < .10). Nevertheless, we indicate that the capacity to experience, discover, and anticipate ethical threats encourages the use of post-conventional stage in decision making, and this result adds to our understanding of the relationship between ethical reasoning and leadership style.

A 70% increase in food production is required over the next four decades to feed an ever-increasing population. The inherent difficulties in achieving this unprecedented increase are exacerbated by the yield-depressing consequences of climate change and variations and by the pressures on food supply by other competing demographic and socioeconomic demands. With the dwindling or stagnant agricultural land and water resources, the sought-after increases will therefore be attained mainly through the enhancement of crop productivity under eco-efficient crop production systems. ‘Smart’ crop varieties that yield more with fewer inputs will be pivotal to success. Plant breeding must be re-oriented in order to generate these ‘smart’ crop varieties. This paper highlights some of the scientific and technological tools that ought to be the staple of all breeding programs. We also make the case that plant breeding must be enabled by adequate policies, including those that spur innovation and investments. To arrest and reverse the worrisome trend of declining capacities for crop improvement, a new generation of plant breeders must also be trained. Equally important, winning partnerships, including public-private sector synergies, are needed for 21st century plant breeding to bear fruits. We also urge the adoption of the continuum approach to the management of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture as means to improved cohesion of the components of its value chain. Compellingly also, the National Agricultural Research and Extension System of developing countries require comprehensive overhauling and strengthening as crop improvement and other interventions require a sustained platform to be effective. The development of a suite of actionable policy interventions to be packaged for assisting countries in developing result-oriented breeding programs is also called for.

A growing world population, changing climate and limiting fossil fuels will provide new pressures on human production of food, medicine, fuels and feed stock in the twenty-first century. Enhanced crop production promises to ameliorate these pressures. Crops can be bred for increased yields of calories, starch, nutrients, natural medicinal compounds, and other important products. Enhanced resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses can be introduced, toxins removed, and industrial qualities such as fibre strength and biofuel per mass can be increased. Induced and natural mutations provide a powerful method for the generation of heritable enhanced traits. While mainly exploited in forward, phenotype driven, approaches, the rapid accumulation of plant genomic sequence information and hypotheses regarding gene function allows the use of mutations in reverse genetic approaches to identify lesions in specific target genes. Such gene-driven approaches promise to speed up the process of creating novel phenotypes, and can enable the generation of phenotypes unobtainable by traditional forward methods. TILLING (Targeting Induced Local Lesions IN Genome) is a high-throughput and low cost reverse genetic method for the discovery of induced mutations. The method has been modified for the identification of natural nucleotide polymorphisms, a process called Ecotilling. The methods are general and have been applied to many species, including a variety of different crops. In this chapter the current status of the TILLING and Ecotilling methods and provide an overview of progress in applying these methods to different plant species, with a focus on work related to food production for developing nations.

Salt accumulation in soil surfaces, known as soil salinity, could lead to the impairment of plant growth and development and is manifested mostly under irrigated and dryland agriculture. Excess salts in the soil affects plants through osmotic stress; accumulation to toxic levels within the cells; and through the interference with the uptake of mineral nutrients. Rice productivity in several parts of the world is therefore severely limited by salinity on account of the prevalence of irrigation in rice farming. Tolerance to salt toxicity in plants is a genetic and physiologically complex trait. Halophytes (salt tolerant plants) are different from the salt-sensitive glycophytes in terms of peculiarities in their anatomy, ability to sequester otherwise toxic ions, and other physiologic processes. It is logical therefore to infer complexity also at the genetic level on account of the several pathways involved in these mechanisms. These complexities have confounded genetic improvement strategies for salinity tolerance in plants resulting in a paucity of saline tolerant plants, with only about 30 officially released saline tolerant crop varieties world-wide. Only one saline tolerant rice variety, Bicol, has been officially released to farmers. We review strategies being currently employed in the development of saline tolerant rice varieties. These include conventional plant breeding which is hampered by the lack of suitable genetic variation for this trait; the modest progress made through doubled haploidy; and the reliance on somaclonal variation, an unsustainably unpredictable strategy. This review also posits that while genetic transformation has led to the modification of certain physiological indices implicated in salinity tolerance in rice, in isolation, these modifications have not been translated to improved yield under salt stress. A more recently adopted strategy, induced mutagenesis, has led to some promising results. We argue that the production of induced rice mutants holds the greatest promise of these strategies for mitigating the scourge of soil salinity considering the relative ease with which other traits in this crop have been modified using this methodology. The underlying principles of induced mutagenesis; the modes of action of different mutagenic agents; and procedures for the rapid production and detection of mutants are also summarised. In order to enhance efficiency in the production, detection and incorporation of induced mutants into crop improvement programmes, we suggest the coupling of in vitro (such as doubled haploidy and cell suspension cultures) and molecular genetic techniques to this methodology. It is posited also that the efficiency of this process can be greatly enhanced by marker-aided selection while high throughput reverse genetics strategies could lead to the rapid detection of mutation events in target genes. It is concluded that with the plethora of genomics resources available for rice, the use of induced mutations for improving salinity tolerance (and other traits) would rely significantly on the concerted application of efficiency enhancing in vitro techniques and functional genomics strategies (including reverse genetics)

The collection of the available range of genetic variation in a gene pool, usually made of the cultivated species and their undomesticated relatives, is referred to as a germplasm collection. Increasingly, discriminator data generated using molecular genetic markers are either complementing or completely replacing those from morphological characters (known as descriptors) in surveys of genetic diversity. In addition to highlighting the state of knowledge on the specific applications of amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs) in surveys of plant genetic diversity, an attempt at a brief description and comparison of the different marker systems in use has also been made in this chapter. We have also attempted a description of the AFLP marker technology, its strengths and weaknesses, methodologies for generating reliable AFLP data, available resources (hardware, software, consumables); the kinds of questions for which AFLP data provide valid answers; and data management options. This chapter also highlights salient considerations that would guide decisions on the adoption of molecular marker assays.