Ola Westengen is an Associate Professor at Noragric and leader of the research cluster 'Climate Change and Agricultural Development' at the department. Previous to joining Noragric in 2015, Westengen was the Coordinator of Operations and Management of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. He does research on agrobiodiversity; conservation and use of genetic resources; seed supply systems; food security and adaptation to climate change; crop evolution and crop diversity as biocultural heritage. He is part of the program comitte for the master program in International Environment Studies and the PhD program in International Environmenat and Development Studies. Ola teaches in EDS306 Foundations of Sustainability Science, EDS352 Agroecology and Development and several other courses at NMBU.
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Areas of work
- Agrobiodiversity
- Crop evolution
- Agricultural Development
- Agri-food systems
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Publications
See Cristin link above for overview
Selecetd books and book chapters:
Farmers and Plant Breeding: Current Approaches and Perspectives, 1st Edition Edited by Ola Tveitereid Westengen, Tone Winge Routledge FORTHCOMING October 2019
Westengen OT and Fowler C. Climate Change, Food and Biodiversity 2019, in Biodiversity and Climate Change: Transforming the Biosphere. Eds Lovejoy T, Hannah L & Wilson, EO Yale University PressWestengen OT 2017 Crops in context: negotiating traditional and formal seed Institutions, in Agronomy for development: the politics of knowledge in agricultural research. Ed. Jim Sumberg, Earthscan Springer.
Selected journal articles:
Westengen OT et al. 2019 Governing seeds in East Africa in the face of climate change: Assessing political and social outcomes. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 3, 53
Westengen, OT et al 2018 Access to genes: linkages between genebanks and farmers’ seed systems. Food security, 10(1), 9-25.
Westengen OT et al. 2017 A Climate for Commerce: The Political Agronomy of Conservation Agriculture in Zambia In press Agriculture and Human Values DOI: 10.1007/s10460-017-9820-x
The State of Food Security: From Availability, Access and Rights to Food Systems Approaches. Forum for Development Studies (2016) DOI:10.1080/08039410.2015.1134644
Ethnolinguistic structuring of sorghum genetic diversity in Africa and the role of local seed systems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2014) 111(39):14100- 14105
Crop adaptation to climate change in the semi-arid zone in Tanzania: the role of genetic resources and seed systems. Agriculture & Food Security. (2014) 3(3)
Modern maize varieties going local in the semi-arid zone in Tanzania. BMC Evolutionary Biology. (2014) 14(1)
Westengen, OT; Jeppson, S & Guarino, L (2013). Global Ex-Situ Crop Diversity Conservation and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault: Assessing the Current Status. PLOS ONE. ISSN 1932-6203. 8(5). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0064146
Westengen O.T., Huaman Z., Heun M. (2005) Genetic Diversity and Geographic Pattern in Early South American Cotton Domestication. Theoretical and Applied Genetics 110: 392-402
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Lecturing
EDS 352 Agriculture, Development and the Environment (Course Leader)
EDS 315 Management of Genetic Resources: Law, Policy and Practice (Course Leader)
EDS 303 Introduction to International Environmental Studies
EDS 306 Foundations of Sustainability Science
ED 430 PhD Course in Environmenta and Development Studies
SUM4029 Global Governance for Sustainable Development (University of Oslo)
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Projects & research
Projects
The primary objective of ACCESS is to generate research-based knowledge and innovations for seed security for humanitarian and long-term agricultural development in Malawi, Tanzania and Ethiopia.
The overall objective of the study is to assess seed systems as social-ecological systems with an emphasis on agro-ecological, social, cultural, economic and political variables.
Areas of research
Theme:
- Food
- Plants
- Development
Specialities:
- Plantegenetiske ressurser