DEL FONDO DE APOYO PARA LA PROCURACIÓN DE JUSTICIA

Access to seed and other plant genetic resources is a crucial issue for farming. This section describes different transformations that have taken place in the production and dissemination of these resources and how they affect small-scale farming sustainability. “Plant genetic resources” (PGR) refer to all the different types of planting material, such as seeds and stem cuttings, of existing plant species. These include wild plants as well as crops developed by farmers and by way of modern biotechnologies.

Sub-section 1.4.1 briefly described how small-scale farmers have developed a di- versity of species and varieties to thrive under specific conditions in their farming systems. Farmers have always needed to exchange seed with one another in order to bring genetic diversity into the farm. This revitalises the genetic makeup of crops and keeps cropping systems resilient. This diversity is not only necessary at the crop level, but also at the level of crop varieties and contributes to plants being adaptable and remaining “robust”. However, in the last sixty years, modern developments in plant breeding have completely transformed the issue of crop

Figure 17: seeds form a major part of “plant genetic resources” (or pGR).

Forests now cover nearly 4 billion hectares or 30 percent of the world’s land area, with ten countries accounting for two-thirds of all forest area: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Indonesia, Peru, the Russian Federation and the United States. Seven countries or territories have no forest at all, and an additional 57 have less than 10 percent forest cover.

Yet, the destruction of forests continues to take place at an alarmingly high rate, due to many activities.

Deforestation (mainly resulting from the conversion of forests to agricultural land), between the years 2000 and 2005 was occurring at a rate of about 13 million hectares per year. Replanting and natural forest expansion partially offset some of this, bringing the net loss down to about 7.3 million hectares per year, an area that is equivalent to the size of Sierra Leone or Panama.

During this period Africa and South America continued to have the largest net loss of forests, while Oceania and North and Central America also experienced a net loss of forests. The forest area in Europe continued to expand, although at a slower rate. Asia, which had a net loss in the 1990s, reported a net gain of forests in this period, primarily due to large-scale afforestation in China.

Primary forests (i.e., forests with no visible signs of past or present human activities) account for 36 percent of total forest area, but are being lost or modified at a rate of 6 million hectares a year, through deforestation or selective logging. Eleven percent of the world’s forests are designated for the conservation of biological diversity. Plantations are increasing, but account for less than 5 percent of forest area.

The FAO’s assessment is based on information from 229 countries and territories - collected in 1990, 2000 and 2005 - and covering all types of forests (including undisturbed primary forest as well as managed plantation forests) in all zones.

biodiversity and how farmers access them. Box 5 provides a brief overview of four types of crop varieties that reflect traditional and modern breeding processes.

Recent innovations in plant breeding have altered how seed and other planting materials are developed. The supply and conservation of plant genetic resour- ces are moving away from many “local” farmer-managed PGR systems to a few “formal” institution-managed research and development systems. These systems vary from place to place and from crop to crop, but some general trends can be seen. Figure 18 provides a simplified model of local and formal PGR systems, to help visualise the important differences between them. The model shows two intentional points of contact between these parallel, yet separate, systems. One is where institution-based gene banks go out to collect traditional varieties and wild relatives from areas where they are available. This allows for greater genetic vari- ability to be conserved and improved upon. The second point of contact occurs when improved seed is distributed from the formal system as an input into the farmers’ system. This is occurring more and more, as farmers seek higher yields to improve their livelihoods. These two systems are explored below.

Landrace: domesticated plants (or animals), adapted to the natural and cultural environment in which they live (or originated) and have co-evolved over generations. Landrace populations are often highly variable in appearance, but they are each identifiable morphologically and have a certain genetic “integrity”. Landraces can have particular properties or characteristics, for example being early or late maturing. They might be especially well adapted to particular soil types. The terms “landrace” and “traditional variety” are sometimes used interchangeably. Heirloom/conservation variety: a cultivated variety of plant that was commonly grown during earlier periods in human history in a certain region, but which is not used in modern agriculture. Many heirloom vegetable varieties have kept their traits through open pollination, while fruit varieties, such as apples, have been multiplied over the centuries through grafts and cuttings.

Hybrid seed: the first generation (“F1”) seed produced from controlled cross-pollination between two different parent lines. Hybrid varieties are bred to improve the yield of the resulting plants by combining greater uniformity with other improvements, such as disease resistance. As hybrid seeds are F1s, their characteristics will segregate in the next generations and their yield goes down if seed collected from the first year is used in the second year. For this reason, the seeds of hybrid varieties are not suitable for re-use and this means farmers should buy new seeds every year. The extra costs and dependency on commercial seed production adds an extra burden to poor farmers. Improved seed: seed that is bred in formal PGR systems for particularly desired characteristics (e.g. drought tolerance, high yielding or early maturing). Improved seed can be either hybrid or open-pollinating; the latter can be derived by selecting certain plant types from landrace populations or by crossing landraces with modern varieties. Such improved seeds are used more widely than traditional and locally adapted seeds and require some inputs to produce optimally in different environments. More farmers are using these seeds to replace the large diversity of local varieties, which means that the use of traditional landraces is decreasing, thereby increasing the chances of reducing the agrobiodiversity base.

box 5: some basic terminology reflecting different processes for developing seed varieties

Looking at a major crop in your country, do you know of examples of landraces, hybrid and improved seed varieties? What advantages and disadvantages do you know for each type?

2.3.1 Traditional local PGR systems

In local PGR systems, seed breeding, selection, production and conservation are all part of one integrated management cycle in which farmers play the central role. Farmers’ crop selection, combined with processes such as crossing between varieties and wild relatives and exchanges with other farmers, form a system of continuous crop evolution. Every year, farmers decide which crops to use for home consumption, for market, for next season’s seed and for exchanging with other farmers. Over time, farmers have developed local varieties and breeds which are most suited to their specific context and preferences. As a result, there are thousands of rice varieties in South East Asia alone. Similarly, it is still common for a farmer in the Andes in South America to know more than a hundred different varieties of potatoes and other tubers by name.

In developing countries, seed produced on-farm or obtained from relatives, friends or other informal channels is still by far the most important seed source for small-scale farmers. In areas where subsistence farming dominates almost all seed is produced on-farm. This proportion varies strongly from crop to crop and from region to region. On-farm seed production tends to be high for crops

Figure 18: the differences and interactions between two kinds of plant genetic resources (pGR) management systems, representing “local” farmer-centred systems and “formal” institution-based systems (adapted from Almekinders and de boef, 1999).

Figure 19: Farmers play a central role in local pGR systems.

and lower for crops such as beans (for which diseases and local storage are more problematic). For other crops that are cross-pollinating, such as maize, that have both improved open-pollinating and hybrid varieties, the use made of traditional varieties from local PGRs may depend on how accessible the commercial varieties are to small-scale farmers. Farmers specialising in horticulture crops for the market, for example, tend to buy improved seed.

Farmers need mechanisms to feed the local gene pool with new materials and characteristics in order to keep their genetic resources robust and adaptable to changing conditions. Seed exchanges between farmers and spontaneous crossings between varieties and wild and cultivated relatives are the most important mechanisms for this. In some areas, seed fairs have been established to facilitate seed exchange between farmers and communities and improve access to a diversity of genetic material. These kinds of exchanges create new opportunities for reducing risk and increasing productivity on farms. Seed fairs have become one way of ensuring that local varieties (and knowledge about them) continue to be valued, improved upon and exchanged. For many small-scale farmers, it is however not always possible to save enough seed for the next season. They may face food shortages caused by weather variability including droughts or floods, problems from pests and disease, lack of access to land, low soil fertility or labour shortages. All these kinds of problems can have a negative effect on local mechanisms such as seed exchanges. Institution-based PGR systems, which are analysed in the next section, present different kinds of options to farmers.

2.3.2 Formal PGR systems

The institutions involved in crop improvement (breeding programmes), seed supply (institutional production, quality control and distribution) and conservation (e.g. gene banks) form a PGR system that functions alongside farmers’ systems (see Figure 18). This “formal” PGR system started developing when plant breeding became a science, accelerating after genes were discovered and knowledge about the possibility of improving plant characteristics through crossings increased. Breeding became a specialised activity with breeder-

researchers working at research institutes and stations. Gene banks were set up in order to conserve and provide access to valuable collections of local varieties and landraces, some of which have been in danger of disappearing completely.

Formal breeding programmes

Breeding is a lengthy and labour-intensive process. Formal breeding programmes are highly dependent on modern technologies. While farmers have traditionally bred crops by selecting plant types originating from crosses that occur through natural pollination, formal breeding programmes develop new, “improved” varieties through planned and controlled crosses. One important aspect of the Green Revolution was the creation of hybrid varieties, resulting from crossing two Go to R2.7 to discuss the

article about seed fairs in Mozambique.

Figure 20: In formal pGR systems, different processes in seed development have been taken over by institutions.

yields but they are not useful for seed saving as the seed does not stay true to the improved characteristics. In this way, farmers are obliged to buy new seed every season. However, not all improved seed is hybrid and many farmers use improved open-pollinating varieties among their crops.

A general issue with improved varieties is that they only reach their productive potential if applied as part of a package - together with chemical fertilisers, pesticides and sufficient irrigation. The private sector and governments have actively promoted these packages as a way of achieving national food security. Originally, many farmers saw high-yielding varieties with options for dealing with pest outbreaks or drought tolerance, for example, as the way out of chronic food shortage and poverty. As a result, an organised production chain emerged in many developing countries based on the blueprint of agricultural development from Europe and North America. There is no doubt that formal PGR packages have helped substantially increase food production and food security in several countries, especially in Asia and Latin America. However, they raise a number of other issues for small-scale farmers, which are discussed below and in Section 3.2. One major issue is that formal PGR packages mean that farmers lose control over selection and breeding processes. Their location-specific breeding priorities are often not reflected in formal breeding programmes, which are often more focused on agriculture under “optimal” general conditions. Another major issue is the narrowing of genetic diversity as many local varieties become replaced by few improved varieties.