| Property | Value |
| Name | Complementing Farmers' Genetic Knowledge Farmer Breeding Workshop in Turipaná, Colombia |
| Description | Saad, N., L.A. Hernández and N. Morante. 2001. Complementing Farmers' Genetic Knowledge: Farmer Breeding Workshop in Turipaná, Colombia. CIAT-IPRA, CORPOICA, DFID, PRGA.Genetic conservation and improvement depends (among other things) on the action of local people. We know that farmers are extremely knowledgeable about their crops and that they continuously experiment with them and with new materials arriving from various sources. Certain farmers are locally recognised as having “expert” knowledge about agro-biodiversity. They are the farmers who stand out during participatory breeding and conservation exercises for their knowledge, experience, interest and dedication to plant genetic resources. One way of ensuring that agrobiodiversity is not lost is to encourage these local experts to continue experimenting with, conserving and enhancing their genetic resources. There are many ways of going about this. This workshop explored the feasibility and methods for complementing farmer experts’ knowledge and skills in the enhancement and conservation of agrobiodiversity.The idea of using skill enhancement as a way of encouraging local people to conserve and enhance biodiversity is not new, but it is one that has not been studied systematically or in-depth. This workshop was planned as part of a project called "Participatory Plant Breeding with Women and Small Farmers in Africa and Latin America," funded by DfID andbackstopped by CIAT and the PRGA Program. During the first phases of this project in the Latin American site – the North Coast Region of Colombia, farmers evaluated 32 cassava clones, of which they selected 5. During the final phase of the project a select group of the participating farmers attended the workshop in order to learn how to make crosses with these five clones. The specific objectives of the workshop were: to show the farmer participants the origins of experimental varieties (including those that they had been evaluating during the project); to explore the farmers’ knowledge about genetics and breeding; to find out if the participants consider it useful to know how to make crosses and about heredity; to enhance the participants’ skills in making crosses, obtaining seed, (and selecting in populations); to reaffirm the farmers’ varietal selection skills; and to motivate the participants to develop an action plan to follow-up the workshop in their communities. This article is a brief account of the workshop – the participants, the methodology and the lessons that we learned in this first attempt at enhancing farmerbreeders skills in the North Coast Region of Colombia. |
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| Filetype | pdf (Mime Type: link) |
| Creator | admin |
| Created On: | 11/15/2008 17:07 |
| Viewers | Everybody |
| Maintained by | Editor |
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| Last updated on | 11/15/2008 17:09 |
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