Background

Early approaches to supporting on-farm conservation of agricultural biodiversity focused on paying farmers to keep animal breeds or grow out seed from populations that had been identified by scientists as being at risk.

However, these approaches required annual financial payments, involved farmers only as passive participants in on-farm conservation activities designed and controlled by scientists, and generally focused on individual components of agricultural biodiversity (a particular breed or variety).

In recognition of these disadvantages, a number of research projects in recent years have attempted to identify more sustainable pathways for supporting on-farm conservation of agricultural biodiversity. For example, the IPGRI Project on In-Situ Conservation; the WRI Cultivating Diversity project; the DFID Linking Policy and Practice in Biodiversity project; the GTZ Managing Agrobiodiversity in Rural Areas project.

The suggestions made have nearly all been extrapolations derived from researchers’ findings regarding the environmental, economic, cultural and policy factors influencing farm households’ biodiversity management decisions in traditional-type agricultural systems.

Accordingly, pathways suggested for supporting on-farm conservation of agricultural biodiversity have focused on:

• decentralized knowledge-intensive approach to technology development where farmers are full participants in the process;
• strengthening of local institutions

and specifically:

• integrated crop management;
• farmer-to-farmer germplasm exchange: seed fairs; community seed banks; village breeding programmes
• quality seed production: technical backstopping; village-level seed production enterprises;
• indigenous human knowledge: awareness campaigns for all stakeholders; support and capacity building, including Farmer Field Schools; new approaches to benefit-sharing; rights-based approaches;
• participatory agricultural research: Participatory Varietal Selection and Participatory Plant Breeding; CIALs;
• marketing: processing technology; product development; agricultural biodiversity tourism

Many of these pathways have not been fully tested in a controlled manner for their capacity to support on-farm conservation effectively. The Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity recognizes this gap and in recent years has passed a number of Decisions requesting Programmes of Work that will expand the information available on these pathways. These include Decision III/11 on agricultural biodiversity; Decision V/15 on legal and economic incentive measures for biodiversity conservation; Decision V/17 on education and public awareness; and Decision V/16 on traditional knowledge (Article 8j).

Many small projects exist working with individual communities that are providing this kind of support for on-farm conservation, directly or indirectly. Investigating the constraints and opportunities facing these projects - the aim of this project - could make important contributions to identifying suitable pathways and thereby progressing active support for on-farm conservation of agricultural biodiversity.