Decentralized-Participatory Plant Breeding: Adapting Crops to Environments and Clients

Abstract

In recent years there has been an increasing interest towards participatory research in general, and towards participatory plant breeding in particular. Following the early work of Rhoades and Booth (1982), scientists have become increasingly aware that users' participation in technology development may increase considerably the probability of success for the technology. In the case of plant breeding, the concept of participation is often associated with the concept of decentralization, defined as selection (not testing) in the target environment(s), and decentralized participatory plant breeding has been proposed as a strategy to reach those areas and those farmers which have been so far bypassed by the benefits of the so called “formal breeding” by exploiting specific adaptation not only to various physical environments but also to various users (Ceccarelli et al., 1996). Social scientists have been the first to experiment with various methodologies of participatory research, while in general biological scientists have been slower in accepting this innovative way of conducting research. Even now, in the case of participatory plant breeding (PPB), who either experiment it or practice it. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to discuss decentralized participatory plant breeding from a plant breeding, rather than from a social science perspective.