Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB)
About Participatory Plant Breeding
Modern plant breeding stands among the greatest scientific and human success stories
of all time. Yet the fruits of major advances in agricultural science, such as
those from the Green Revolution, have bypassed millions of farmers in developing
countries, most of whom operate small farms under unstable and difficult growing
conditions. The adoption of new plant varieties by this group has been low, an
issue that has challenged scientists, development workers, governments, donors,
and all others with a stake in agricultural progress and the fight against poverty.
Their response has been the creation of a novel and promising set of research
methods collectively known as participatory plant breeding (PPB).
While the principal aims of PPB are to create more relevant technology and
equitable access to it, there are often other objectives, depending on the organizations
involved. For example, large-scale breeding programs by international or national
research agencies may wish to cut research costs. Other organizations, such
as farmer's groups and NGOs, may wish to affirm local people's rights over genetic
resources, produce seed, build farmers' technical expertise, or develop new
products for niche markets, like organically grown food.
Conventional breeding has tended to focus heavily on "broad adaptability"
— the capacity of a plant to produce a high average yield over a range
of growing environments and years. Unfortunately, candidate genetic material
that produces very good yields in one growing zone, but poor yields in another,
tends to be quickly eliminated from the breeder's gene pool. Yet, this may be
exactly what small farmers in some areas need. And the resulting "improved"
varieties often require heavy doses of fertilizer and other chemicals, which
most poor farmers can't afford. Professional breeders, often working in relative
isolation from farmers, have sometimes been unaware of the multitude of preferences
— beyond yield, and resistance to diseases and pests — of their target
farmers. Ease of harvest and storage, taste and cooking qualities, how fast
a crop matures, and the suitability of crop residues as livestock feed are just
a few of the dozens of plant traits of interest to small-scale farmers.. Despite
this wealth of knowledge, in many cases farmers' participation in conventional
breeding programs has been limited to evaluating and commenting on a few advanced
experimental varieties just prior to their official release. Such token participation
means that few farmers feel a sense of ownership of the research or have been
able to contribute their technical expertise. Many of the varieties reaching
on-farm trials would have been eliminated from testing years earlier if farmers
had been given the chance to critically assess them. Farmers — and in many
cases, women farmers — have been the chief engineers of crop and variety
development for thousands of years, and continue today to actively select and
breed most crops, including the so-called 'minor' or 'neglected ones, which
are so key for family nutrition.
A goal of the PRGA program is to build on farmers' knowledge, which involves
clearly identifying farmers' needs and preferences and the reasoning behind
them. So far, more than 80 participatory plant breeding efforts have been documented.
The systematic recording of this knowledge, and its application in formal breeding
programs, has been one of PPB's major achievements, but while the technical
issues of PPB are moving ahead, the social, ethical and legal issues are lagging
behind. People generally recognize the role of farmers in managing and improving
germplasm, but there's little agreement yet on how to value the role and research
contributions of both the farming community and the formal breeding system.
For
more information read the full article by Gerry Toomey.....
Working Group on Participatory Plant Breeding
Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB) is a major thematic area of the PRGA's work.
The Working Group on Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB-wg), established in 1996,
has identified four key outputs for advancing the field:
- To assess and develop effective participatory methods in plant breeding,
with a focus on farmer breeding, plant selection (segregating lines) and variety
selection (fixed lines).
- To involve and target beneficiary groups in participatory breeding through
development of social methods for working with users and better anticipating
their needs.
- To identify and develop effective ways of organising participatory breeding
in the research process.
- To ensure user access to the products of participatory breeding through
appropriate seed system support.
- To ensure user access to the products of participatory breeding through
identification of appropriate property rights and other forms of benefit sharing.
PRGA annual
reports map yearly progress on each of these themes.
The PPB working group is open to all practitioners and developers
of participatory research approaches for plant breeding. The group interacts
through an email discussion list, meetings and seminars and is the sister group
to Participatory Natural Resource Management (PNRM). To join the PPB-wg contact
the facilitator.
Achieving
Impact Through Participatory Plant Breeding
A presentation in PDF format
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PPB Project Inventory
The PRGA has compiled inventories of projects that use participatory research
methods natural resource management and thein plant breeding. Our goal is
to provide a systematic assessment of the impacts resulting from the use of
participatory research and gender analysis and to make this information available
to researchers, practitioners, farmers, donors, and any others interested
in the field.
Cases included in these inventories were collected at different times and
information was provided by researchers themselves. Many of the projects were
still underway at the time of data collection. If you would like to submit
a new case or provide updated information on an existing case, contact prga@cgiar.org.
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PPB Resources
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