The joy of sharing seeds: organizing a successful seed fair

A seed fair is an activity to create awareness about and appreciate local crop diversity, exchange seed and related knowledge, and celebrate farmers’ efforts to conserve agrobiodiversity. It takes considerable time and effort to organize a seed fair. This brief graphically presents the steps involved in organzing a seed fair at the Agyauli Community Seedbank, Nawalparasi, bringing together 30 members of 10 community seedbanks from the terai (the southern lowland) region of Nepal

Options for national governments to support smallholder farmer seed systems: The cases of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.

This brief examines how current seed policies and laws in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda affect smallholder farmers’ practices in terms of seed selection, saving, and storage; replanting or multiplication; sharing; improvement; and marketing. The examination is based on three measures: the degree of recognition of the roles and rights of smallholder farmers related to seed management; the degree to which policy and legal regulations facilitate smallholder-based seed management; and the level of support (moral, technical, and financial) such regulations provide for smallholder-based seed management. Together, these measures can be seen as a reflection of the degree of openness of a seed system. The current level of openness, as an approximate value, can then be compared with that of a completely open seed system. The brief concludes with some reflections about bottlenecks and opportunities for moving to more open systems. This work builds on other current research on the relation between seed policies and laws and agriculture/agricultural biodiversity/farmers’ rights/food security

Realizing farmers’ rights through community-based agricultural biodiversity management

This brief has been prepared by Bioversity International for delegates to the 2016 Global Consultation on Farmers’ Rights. The brief aims to raise awareness among delegates and Contracting Parties to the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) of the crucial contribution that a community-based approach to the conservation and sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity can make to realizing farmers’ rights and empowering men and women smallholder farmers. At the Sixth Session of the Governing Body, under Resolution 5/2015, the Secretariat was requested “to engage Contracting Parties and relevant organizations to take initiatives to gather information at national, regional and global levels for exchanging views, experiences and best practices on the implementation of Farmers’ Rights”. This brief aims to contribute to that body of information

The importance and challenges of crop germplasm interdependence: the case of Bhutan

An analysis of food crop germplasm flows into and out of Bhutan was carried out to determine the extent of reliance of Bhutanese agriculture on introduced germplasm. Methods used included literature review, key informant interviews, field visits and crop pedigree analysis. Bhutan has been introducing foreign germplasm since the 1960s. By December 2015, about 300 varieties of 46 food crops including several non-traditional crops were introduced. Germplasm sources include CGIAR centres such as IRRI, CIMMYT, ICARDA, and AVRDC and countries such as Bangladesh, India, Japan, Korea, Nepal, and Thailand. Pedigree analysis of rice varieties indicated that 74% of the released varieties originated in other countries. Using imported germplasm, Bhutan has formally released over 180 varieties of cereals, fruits and vegetables. Initially, the germplasm flow was largely unregulated, but the country has been developing formal exchange mechanisms with the creation of the National Biodiversity Centre (NBC) in 1995. Findings point to a strong reliance on external germplasm for the country’s major food crops. International germplasm exchanges will remain important to deal with new environmental and climatic conditions and given the limited national plant breeding capacity. National agricultural policy should give higher priority to collaborative development of new crops in the Himalayan region and beyond

Access to and benefit sharing of plant genetic resources: novel field experiences to inform policy

A number of national and international policy processes are underway to allow for the development of sui generis systems to protect local natural and genetic resources and related knowledge about their management, use and maintenance. Despite agreements reached on paper at international and national levels, such as the Nagoya Protocol on access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits derived from their use, and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, progress in implementation has been slow and in many countries, painful. Promising examples from the field could stimulate policy debates and inspire implementation processes. Case studies from China, Cuba, Honduras, Jordan, Nepal, Peru and Syria offer examples of novel access and benefit sharing practices of local and indigenous farming communities. The examples are linked to new partnership configurations of multiple stakeholders interested in supporting these communities. The effective and fair implementation of mechanisms supported by appropriate policies and laws will ultimately be the most important assessment factor of the success of any formal access and benefit sharing regime

Seeds of resilience: novel strategies for using crop diversity in climate change adaptation

Findings from the field point to a decline in diversity of local varieties in many countries. Future impacts of climate change are expected to become more pronounced in many parts of the world forcing farmers to change their practices and find crops and varieties better adapted to new wea- ther dynamics. Providing farmers with better access to crop and varietal diversity can strengthen their capacity to adapt to climate change. Under supportive policy and socioeconomic conditions, such strengthened capacity could contribute to greater food availability throughout the year, the production of more nutritious and healthy crops, and income generation. Bioversity International and national research partners are implementing a comprehensive seed resilience strategy allowing farmers to access and use plant genetic diversity more effectively in the context of climate change adaptation. The strategy combines the use of climate and crop modelling tools and participatory research methods. The strategy has eight steps: 1. Situational analysis and planning 2. Data preparation and selection of software 3. Climate change analysis and identification of germplasm 4. Germplasm acquisition 5. Field experimentation 6. Germplasm conservation 7. Participatory evaluation 8. Knowledge sharing and communication. In Uganda, a team of scientists and extension agents used the strategy to diversify farmers’ access to beans, one of the country’s key crops for food security. Using climate change scenario analysis, DIVA-GIS and crop suitability modelling the team identified bean accessions with good climate adaptation potential from three sources: (i) the national gene banks in Rwanda and Uganda, (ii) communities in both countries and (iii) international genebanks. In 2014, the first phase of participatory field trials with farmers was realised using materials from the national genebank and locally adapted varieties. In addition, accessions from international genebanks were requested and then tested in the field in 2015. A third source of novel germplasm are farmers’ own varieties. Based on an exchange visits between farmers of community seed banks in Uganda Rwanda, a number of varieties of beans were identified and tested in 2016. Resources: http://www.seedsresourcebox.or

Crowdsourcing vegetables for farmers’ livelihood improvement: a novel collaborative pilot in Uganda. Resilient seed systems for climate change adaptation and sustainable livelihoods in the East Africa sub-region project progress report

The Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT is implementing a Dutch-supported project entitled: Resilient seed systems for climate change adaptation and sustainable livelihoods in the East Africa sub-region. This work aims to boost timely and affordable access to good-quality seed for a portfolio of crops / varieties for millions of women and men farmers’ and their communities across East Africa. East West Seed (EWS) and the Alliance, in collaboration with the Wageningen Center for Development Innovation, the World Vegetable Centre and National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO)-Uganda, are combining the EWS farmer training approach and the Alliance’s crowdsourcing methodology in a small pilot initiative on vegetables in Uganda. The targeted portfolio of vegetables include traditional (e.g. green leafy vegetables) and modern ones (e.g. tomato, onion, sweet pepper, cabbage, pumpkin) based on farmers’ interests and marketing opportunities, sourced from EWS, the World Vegetable Centre and farmers’ own gardens. The main objective is to strengthen farmers’ capacity to make better use of crop (vegetable) diversity for multiple livelihood purposes. Based on a situational analysis in the Hoima area, 13 farmers were selected to take part in the pilot. They received training in the various aspects of vegetable management from the EWS Knowledge Transfer team in Uganda. The ultimate aim is scale the pilot to about 1,000 farmers. The main research questions for this initiative are: • What are the promising vegetable varieties that smallholder farmers could integrate in their production system? • How do social and gender variables influence crop/variety selection? • What organizational form can best support the testing and adoption of vegetable new species and varieties