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The threat to biodiversity has the potential to disrupt the global food supply (photo: IDRC: P. Bennett).

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Issue

Throughout the developing world, small farmers who struggle to make a living on marginal lands are the inadvertent custodians of agricultural diversity. Because the high-yielding hybrid seeds produced by research stations are often unsuited for marginal farmland, these resource-poor farmers (many of whom are women) continue to select and cultivate traditional varieties that they know will produce under all but the worst conditions.

Modern plant breeding not only fails to meet the needs of small farmers in the developing world, it also tends to diminish agricultural diversity. Now many believe it may be necessary to rethink conventional breeding strategies.

Participatory plant breeding (PPB) is a research model designed to improve the livelihoods of small farmers by increasing yields and, at the same time, conserving and enhancing diversity. In PPB approaches, researchers work alongside farmers in the fields to develop varieties that truly meet the farmers’ needs. The results of this collaborative research are helping to maintain the genetic variation that is essential to the continued evolution and adaptation of plant genotypes, on farms and in communities.

Case Studies

China: Bridging the gap between scientists and farmers

The upland regions of China’s Guangxi province are an important source of diversity for maize, which is an important staple here, as well as other crops. This diversity of maize is threatened by an increasing reliance on a few hybrid maize varieties. Working alongside the resource-poor farmers of the region, many of whom are women, researchers are helping to improve maize yields and conserve the genetic base. The project also aims to empower poor women farmers and demonstrate the importance of crop diversity through events such as biodiversity fairs. Their results are getting attention at the national level.

Latin America: An engine for rural development

All across Latin America, small farmers are joining local agricultural research committees, or CIALs. Part learning centre, part community association, and part experimental research group, the CIALs are a unique attempt to involve resource-poor farmers as partners in participatory agricultural research. The activities of each CIAL are planned, carried out, and evaluated by the community with the aid of a facilitator, who also provides training where needed. There are now some 250 CIALs across the region, and in some countries, such as Honduras, a national CIAL federation has been formed to fund small projects and implement longer term research.

North Africa and the Middle East: Breeding better barley -- together

Farmers in North Africa and the Middle East plant more than five million hectares of barley each year, but yields are low and crop failures are common. A team of pioneering researchers brought together farmers, breeders, and social scientists with the goal of meeting the food and feed needs of people living and working in the harsh conditions of the region. Farmers were treated as true partners, and the plant breeders worked alongside them in the fields. Yields increased in areas where plant breeding had not previously been successful, and the initial project has now spread to other countries throughout the region.

Read about these and other case studies.

Recommendations

Many valuable lessons have been learned in 10 years of IDRC support for agrobiodiversity research. From this accumulated base of knowledge and experience emerges a series of recommendations for the conservation of agricultural biodiversity.

1. Increase relevance. PPB is particularly relevant where agriculture is marginal and where the goals are to increase productivity and conserve diversity. To further increase relevance, research should focus on crops that farmers identify as important and on giving farmer–breeders greater control over breeding and seed production.

2. Create new partnerships. 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. Farmers, particularly women farmers, must be encouraged to take on active roles and help set direction. Research should be interdisciplinary and decentralized.

3. Improve interaction and reward cooperation. PPB requires a different way of organizing time, labour, and the research process, with more emphasis on face-to-face interaction in the field. Process management is key, and training is necessary if staff are lacking these skills. Farmers and breeders should be rewarded for contributions to both the process and the end product.

4. Apply the principles of good practice. This means contributing to local impacts of research efforts as well as to generating valid, trustworthy, and relevant research findings. It is important to track the effectiveness of research efforts, understand the learning process, and ensure that research findings can be generalized to projects in other areas.

5. Assess results through participatory monitoring and evaluation (PME). New monitoring tools are needed that reflect the dynamic, collaborative, multistakeholder nature of PPB. PME is an approach that contributes to a better understanding of how different concerns and interests are represented and negotiated.

6. Nourish a new generation of practitioners. Innovative teaching and training methods, including learning-by-doing, are needed to help natural scientists and social scientists, as well as lawyers, to broaden their knowledge and skills base across disciplines.

Document(s) 3 of 5