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## Meet the editors

Arnoldo Gonzalez Reyna has a bachelor's degree in Agronomy from the Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas (UAT), Mexico, an MSc from Utah State University, USA, and a Ph.D. from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, where he also completed a postdoctoral fellowship. He is Professor Emeritus at UAT, with an academic and research career spanning more than 37 years. Dr. González Reyna worked with Criollo cattle and hair sheep

for the Mexican Association of Animal Production for 13 years. He has authored numerous publications, including indexed and refereed articles, book chapters, and books. His areas of expertise are ruminant physiology and endocrinology of reproduction, animal production systems, and biotechnology of reproduction. He continues teaching and counseling graduate students at UAT and working with private producers in Northeast México.

Dr. Prashant Kaushik holds adjunct faculty positions at three universities and is a genome data engineer for a private company. He holds a BS (Hons) in Agriculture, a PG diploma in Floriculture and Landscaping, an MS in Vegetable Science, and an MBA in Production and Operations Management. After obtaining a Ph.D. in Biotechnology from Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Spain, Dr. Kaushik was a bioinformatician at Nagano

University and Yokohama Ueki, Japan. He has published 150 research articles and an equivalent number of non-indexed research publications. He has written six books and fourteen book chapters. Among his research interests are molecular biology, plant breeding, genomics, landraces, and population genetics.

### Contents


Preface

My first encounter with landraces was with a Criollo (or Creole) cattle (developed in Central America, called Criollo Lechero Centroamericano) and hair sheep (in México, known as Pelibuey and Blackbelly). It was not until I began editing the first chapter of this book that I realized that I had been living with animal landraces all my life. In later years, and by trade, I learned and worked with some plant landraces (corn, sorghum, sunflower, and some forages and grasses) to complete my agronomy degree.

Landraces are local species of plants and animals that have developed and adapted over time to a localized geographic region. They are important components of our environment and play an important role in the sustainability of the environment.

Every continent on Earth is composed of different regions and every region is composed of several eco-regions or ecosystems. As such, this book discusses landraces in the context of different regions and countries and makes no attempt to generalize or

This book is organized into two sections on animal landraces and plant landraces. Section 1 includes two chapters that describe the use of ruminants in tropical regions. Section 2 includes four chapters on the benefits of the use of indigenous plants

I would like to thank the contributing authors for their efforts in writing the chapters. I also acknowledge and thank the support provided by the academic and editorial team, as well as the trust and responsibility granted to me as editor by IntechOpen.

Institute of Conservation and Improvement of Valencian Agrodiversity,

**Arnoldo González-Reyna**

**Prashant Kaushik**

Valencia, Spain

Autonomous University of Tamaulipas, Cd. Victoria, Tamaulipas, México

Polytechnic University of Valencia,

impose conclusions for global application.

and strategies for improving wheat production.
