Farmer-led plant genetic resource conservation, development and sustainable use

Engendering access for smallholder farmers to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture for conservation and sustainable use

Negros Occidental Province, Western Visayas, Philippines

 3 April 2024 - 3 April 2026

Address the challenge facing farmers, who lack access to seeds and planting materials from which they can develop crop varieties that not only meet their nutritional needs but which are also best suited to local farming conditions

In some of the partner communities, rice is an “indulgence” for farming households who cannot afford to buy it on a regular basis, and cannot grow it due to inadequate irrigation facilities and lack of varieties that suit local conditions. Corn is a major crop for consumption and commercial purposes, but the seeds of better varieties are unaffordable for them while those distributed by the government sometimes have low germination. 

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Currently, small farmers in the Project communities of Kabankalan and Bago cities, rely on their own saved seeds, seeds that they have to buy, or seeds that come packaged with chemical inputs and distributed by the local agriculture office. Through this project, SEARICE and its main institutional partner—the Central Philippines State University (CPSU)-- will build the farmers’ capacity to manage the sustainable use and conservation of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFAs), or simply seeds.

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Funded by the Benefit-Sharing Fund (BSF) of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), or simply, the Plant Treaty, the two-year SEARICE-CPSU project is one of only 48 projects worldwide that have been selected for support under the fifth cycle of the BSF.

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This Project will supply the farmers with an initial source of PGRFAs, which the farmers will use as they capacity is built to develop, select, rehabilitate or enhance varieties according to their preferences. The Project will enable the farmers to develop various crop options that are adaptable to different agro climatic conditions on in-situ seedbanks, or on their own farms and homes. 

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A higher level of support to the farmers will be the establishment of a genebank which will serve as repository for important PGRFAs for conservation and use and as back-up storage for farmers’ PGRFAs. This seedbank will be lodged at the Central Philippines State University (CPSU), the main partner of SEARICE in this Project. The successful implementation of the project is envisioned to ensure access to diversified good adaptable PGRFAs, improve on-farm productivity, expand livelihood opportunities, diversify food options for food and nutrition security and contribute to enhancing agricultural biodiversity.

The project will be implemented in 15 communities in (project area) and will target to train 375 farmers, 50 percent of whom are women. A baseline survey will be conducted by SEARICE to determine the farmers’ breeding objectives. Following this, a series of Farmer Field Schools (FFS), and subsequently, field studies and on-farm trials, will be undertaken to train the farmers to perform participatory plant breeding and plant variety selection. At the end of the training, the farmers will select the materials that they would like to work on.

Unique seeds that were developed and selected by the farmers will be stored in a genebank as a back-up collection. SEARICE will share its seedbank management experience to support the partner university to in enhance its PGRFA collection. The project will also include the establishment of community registries to store information on each of the PGRFA materials that have been developed by the farmers. Knowledge products geared towards farmers will be developed, including research papers on on-farm PGRFA management, a manual on food storage, processing, handling and packaging, and a document on the protocols of seedbank management.

On 5 to 7 June 2024, SEARICE made a jumpstart on the Project. SEARICE gathered over 30 farmer representatives from 15 farmers’ associations in Kabankalan City and Bago City, in Negros Occidental Province, to participate in a three-day baseline study workshop, along with officials of the Central Philippines State University (CPSU)—SEARICE’s main local project partner, and representatives from the Office of the Municipal Agriculturist of Kabankalan and Bago cities. 
 
The baseline study workshop introduced the farmers to the use of baseline gathering tools, including:

1. the community resource map, which shows the location of resources in the project areas as well as the types of agroecosystems prevailing in them;

2. the historical timeline, which chronicles events in the history of the community that affected their seed systems;

3. the problem tree, which identifies and links causes to problems and consequences;

4. the diversity wheel, which categorizes common food plants found in the community assessing the crop diversity; and

5. pairwise ranking (by gender), which enables farmers to identify their top preferred crops and to rank them according to preference.

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