Source:
Plant Breeding News - Edition 208
An Electronic Newsletter of Applied Plant Breeding
Clair H. Hershey, Editor
Sponsored by GIPB, FAO/AGP and Cornell University’s Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics
S. Ceccarelli, E.P. Guimaraes and E. Weltzien (eds.)
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, 2009. 671 pp.
Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB) originated in the early 1980s as part of a movement promoting the concept of participatory research, in response to criticisms of the failure of post-green-revolution, experiment-station-based research to address the needs of poor farmers in developing countries. Rooted in debate over the social consequences of the narrow focus of the scientific type of research, PPB gained recognition as an activity mostly promoted by social scientists and agronomists based in anti-establishment non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
Today there is widespread recognition that the conventional package of new varieties and external inputs, while successful in the more favourable production areas, has often failed to benefit small-scale farmers in marginal areas. As a result, the vital role of PPB as an additional strategy is better understood. Experience has taught that PPB is complementary to conventional plant breeding rather than an alternative type of plant breeding. Demand for a complementary approach has expanded considerably because of pressure to ensure the relevance of research to poor farmers and their diverse agricultural systems, and because PPB allows selection for the specific adaptation required for such a diversity of target environments. Today, about 80 participatory breeding programmes are known worldwide, involving various institutions and various crops. In 2000, an international review of plant breeding research methodologies concluded that PPB should be an “organic” part of every plant breeding programme aimed at benefiting small-scale farmers in difficult, high-risk environments. In fact, traditional farming and low-input systems, including organic agriculture, are a very heterogeneous population of target environments and not easily served by centralized, conventional plant breeding.
This book demonstrates that PPB is in essence no different from conventional plant breeding, being based on the very same principles of Mendelian, quantitative and population genetics, and therefore has complemented the traditional approach to plant breeding with a number of chapters addressing issues specifically related to the participation of farmers in a plant breeding programme.
The book is aimed at plant breeders, social scientists, students and practitioners, with the hope that they all will find a common ground to discuss ways in which plant breeding can be beneficial to all and can contribute to alleviate poverty.
The authors of the various chapters have been carefully selected to represent three groups of scientists: the first comprises internationally recognized experts in genetics as related to plant breeding, and in the various aspects of plant breeding (from general methodological issues to more specific issues, such as breeding for resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, high yield potential, molecular breeding and genotype × environment interactions); the second group is represented by professional breeders who have actually practised participatory plant breeding with a number of different crops and in a number of socially and climatically different areas, using the range of methods presented by the first group; and, finally, the third is represented by a group of scientists with specific expertise in areas not usually covered in classical plant breeding books, such as variety release mechanisms, seed diffusion, institutional issues associated with PPB, and intellectual property rights. A chapter documenting the impact that participatory plant breeding has had after about thirty years of practice has been chosen to be the logical conclusion of the book.
(Excerpted from the Foreword by the editor, PBN-L)
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