Features Lessons and recommendations: overview (slide show) The issue: overview (slide show) In_Focus: SEEDS THAT GIVE Participatory Plant Breeding Ronnie Vernooy

• CASE 1: North Africa and the Middle East
  Breeding Better Barley -- Together

• CASE 2: Latin America
  An Engine for Rural Development in Latin America

• CASE 3: Cuba
  Farmers and Researchers Reshape Cuba's Agriculture

• CASE 4: Nepal
  Discovering Diversity in the Hills of Nepal

• CASE 5: China
  Bridging the Gap between Scientists and Farmers in China

• CASE 6: Global
  Rethinking Strategies for Agricultural Research

• Case studies: overview (slide show)
  

Accounting for Gender in Participatory Agricultural Research 2000-02-25
About two decades ago, agricultural scientists working in developing countries began using participatory research methods, in plant breeding and other activities. It was an attempt to get around a frustrating problem: low technology adoption rates among farmers. Now, as these 'farmer friendly' research tools begin to permeate national and international research centres around the world, the role of women farmers is getting special attention. Leading the research efforts is the Systemwide Program on Participatory Research and Gender Analysis, a global initiative supported by IDRC and donor agencies in 10 other countries.

Farmers as Researchers: The Rise of Participatory Plant Breeding 1999-09-10
Despite major advances in agricultural science, the rate of adoption of new plant varieties by hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers in developing countries has been abysmally low. Under the Systemwide Program on Participatory Research and Gender Analysis for Technology Development and Institutional Innovation, researchers in universities, national and international research institutes, NGOs, grassroots organizations, and other groups are assessing and formulating new methods and organizational arrangements for participatory research in the areas of plant breeding and natural resource management. The principal aim is to create more relevant technology and equitable access to it.

Scientists and Farmers Join Forces to Conserve Mexico's Maize Diversity 2000-04-07
In just one region of the Mexican state of Oaxaca, there are more than 152 local varieties or land races of corn or 'maize'. But this diversity may not last forever. Economic development could wipe out land races as farmers switch to commercial agriculture or abandon farming. In 1997, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales Agrícolas y Pecuarias set out to explore where scientists and farmers can join forces to conserve maize diversity, with funding from IDRC.