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

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 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Project Inventory

PPB Resources

PRGA Publications.