Document(s) 6 of 9

Part 5

RECOMMENDATIONS

Participatory plant breeding demands a different, innovative way of addressing human needs that goes well beyond the aim of increasing productivity. Its goals are achieving productivity increase, diversity enhancement, and empowerment.

As we have seen, dynamic approaches that are collaborative, involve multiple stakeholders, and employ sound participatory methods do contribute to food security and improved livelihoods. However, field-level interventions alone, both on the farm and in communities, are not enough to sustain these well-tested alternatives. Long-term success requires that these efforts be backed up by supportive policies, by actions to ensure that policies are implemented, and where necessary by related legislation.

Bridging the divide between research in the field and widespread implementation of the methodology needed to support the processes that maintain diversity over time represents a major political challenge. Meeting that challenge requires affirmative action in six decision-making areas of government or research, or both. Relevant policies concern agricultural development, conservation of natural resources, variety release, intellectual property rights, farmers' and plant breeders' rights, marketing, and product certification.

1. Increase relevance: putting users of crop diversity at centre stage

PPB is particularly relevant in any of the following situations:

Attempting to address any or all of these challenges requires a willingness to work with a new research and development model: an approach that contributes to increasing both effectiveness and efficiency by putting the users of crop diversity at centre stage.

2. Create new partnerships: farmers, scientists, and other stakeholders working together as equals

A new division of labour, new partnerships, and new forms of cooperation are at the heart of the PPB approach. The goal must be to involve farmers in the research in ways that are meaningful to them: in short, to improve the quality of farmer participation. Farmers must no longer be just the passive recipients of technologies, seeds, and information. They must be encouraged to take on active roles and help set direction. Women farmers in particular must be given a priority place. This is not for reasons of "political correctness" but because of women's often intimate knowledge of crop production and reproduction, their needs and interests in food security, and their leading roles in households, extended families, and social networks.

Breeders should do more work in situ -- on farms and in communities -- with farmers as colleagues, each complementing the other's knowledge, skills, and experience.

Decentralization should replace centralization as the main organizing principle to address specific local contexts.

Breeders should also collaborate with social scientists in an interdisciplinary research mode that takes into account both the biophysical and the social dimensions of the dynamic processes involved in maintaining diversity.

3. Pay attention to quality interaction and reward cooperation: farmers and scientists sharing benefits and costs

More evidence is required across regions and in specific contexts, but there is certainly enough to confirm that the participatory approach is both effective and efficient. It requires a different way of organizing time, labour, and the research process with more emphasis on face-to-face interaction, especially in the field.

Start-up periods are usually very labour intensive, requiring a good deal of time and effort to lay a foundation of trust and to build working relationships. Longer term commitments are important to be able to create meaningful and effective collaboration and to cope with unavoidable setbacks, such as crop failure as a result of drought.

Facilitation and convening are new and important roles for researchers to take on. Additional training is an important investment if staff are lacking these skills. Working with a diverse group of people -- including scientists in various fields, women and men farmers, and extension workers -- means balancing a variety of ideas, interests, skills, and personalities. Managing the process of participatory planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation means paying significant attention to interactions and communications as well as ensuring openness and fairness. Building and strengthening the participatory process must be a central part of the agenda.

Participation in plant breeding also requires changes in how germplasm is selected, how experimental plots are designed, where experiments are implemented, and how assessment of the results takes place.

This method of organizing time and labour is called process management. Promising and successful efforts must be recognized with incentives and rewards. Farmers should be officially recognized as "coauthors" of new varieties or of publications that document the processes and final results. Breeders should be recognized and rewarded not only for the release of new varieties but also for their contribution to the process leading to the final products. Research grants should be targeted to proposals that deal adequately with process management questions.

4. Ensure good practice: five guiding principles

The principal aims of PPB are threefold -- increased productivity, increased diversity, and the empowerment of farmers and other stakeholders. To contribute to these aims we need to track how and to what degree the methodology and particular tools influence both the effectiveness of research efforts and the empowerment of local resource managers. This requires a clear understanding of the types of learning that guide the process, and of the many variables that influence participatory practice. Good practice means both contributing to local impacts and generating valid, trustworthy, and relevant research findings. Relevance implies that these findings can be generalized; that they contribute to learning that can be applied in some way to areas beyond the research site.

The principles of good practice are as follows:

• The research reflects a clear and coherent common agenda or set of priorities among stakeholders, and it contributes to building partnerships.
• The research addresses the complex dynamics of change in human and natural resource systems and processes, and attempts to form an understanding of these, especially at the local level.
• The research links together various knowledge domains and applies the "triangulation principle" of encompassing multiple sources of information and methods.
• The research contributes to a concerted planning effort for social change.
• The research process is based on iterative learning and feedback loops, and there is a continuous two-way sharing of information.

5. Assess results through participatory monitoring and evaluation

Addressing users' needs and interests requires a different way of identifying good results. No longer can we rely just on predefined criteria generated in places far removed from farmers' fields and realities. No longer can we accept only the views and judgements of scientists or managers. New monitoring mechanisms, tools, and indicators are needed that reflect the dynamic, collaborative, multistakeholder nature of PPB.

Participatory monitoring and evaluation (PME) is an approach that opens a new window on research practice. It brings researchers together with other stakeholders -- such as farmers, government officials, and extension workers -- to monitor and evaluate research or development activities. Integrating PME into the project cycle strengthens the learning, accountability, and effectiveness of research efforts, in particular through the realization that what matters is not only what is assessed but also who does the assessing. PME contributes to a better understanding of how different concerns and interests are represented and negotiated.

PME also contributes greatly to a better understanding by researchers and local government staff of the interests and needs of both women and men farmers. Broadening the involvement of the various stakeholders in identifying and analyzing change creates a clearer picture of what is really happening on the ground and can include the perspectives of women, men, and various age, class, and ethnic groups. It encourages people to share successes and learn from each other.

Useful tools include ranking diagrams of various kinds; strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis; impact diagrams and matrices; focus group discussions; and self-evaluation forms. Criteria and examples of indicators used to measure results include the effects on

• improved farmer production (increased yield, improved cooking quality of grains),
• increased farmer-held diversity (increased number of varieties per crop, drought-tolerant varieties introduced),
• strengthened local organization of crop management and seed production (women take the lead in seed production and marketing, farmers organize local research groups),
• more dynamic and participatory formal breeding process (breeders have a better understanding of farmers' criteria),
• more dynamic and integrated organization of formal breeding and seed production (decentralization of experiments, landraces collected for inclusion in breeding programs), and
• empowerment (farmers ask breeders to extend PPB to other crops, farmers train other farmers).

6. Nourish a new generation of practitioners: innovate teaching and training methods

Learning by doing is useful to create a pool of experienced and knowledgeable practitioners in public and private organizations. However, new training and teaching methods must be designed, executed, and assessed to enlarge this pool and to speed the uptake of the approach. Natural scientists (plant breeders and agronomists), social scientists (economists, sociologists, and anthropologists), and lawyers must broaden their knowledge and skills base across disciplines. They need to learn to work together and be able to better complement each other. They need to be able to use appropriate participatory methods. They should be able to bring together various stakeholders and facilitate fluid and ongoing communication and cooperation.

Short, iterative training courses can be a means to acquire the new knowledge and skills, but more fundamental changes in graduate and postgraduate programs are necessary to train the future managers in research and policy.

The challenge

Affirmative action in these six areas is needed now to build on what has already been achieved, not only by IDRC but also by like-minded organizations around the world. However, it is an unfortunate fact that policy-making processes tend to be slow, complex, and political in nature, whether at the local, national, or international level. If we are to conserve the world's biodiversity, we must find ways of overcoming that structural inertia. In the words of the Crucible Group:

Policymakers must find a way to stimulate innovation at the community, national, and international levels -- in formal and informal, public and private sectors. The challenge ... is to find equitable mechanisms that allow these diverse forms of innovation to collaborate for the benefit of humanity.

-- People, Plants, and Patents, IDRC 1994, p. 43

Document(s) 6 of 9