We began this series of workshops seeking to identify coalitions to strengthen farmers’ engagement in crop variety and seed system development and innovation (see summaries of workshop 1 and workshop 2). The development of either a new proposal or creating explicit and strong links between complementary programs were the intended final outputs. “Let’s get on with it!” was the feedback we received after the second workshop.
This third workshop, which will take place on Thursday 2nd December, is designed to see how we might indeed get on with it. Work areas, distilled from the first two workshops, are outlined below. Each area contributes to the central ambition of improving farmer-researcher collaboration through eco-regional or crop-based networks on Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB) and dissemination of varietal diversity at scale.
We invite interested participants to contribute ideas for developing initiatives, projects or coalitions —novel or already underway—to strengthen and broaden collaborative PPB and varietal diversity dissemination. We are more likely to address seed systems in their entirety by working and learning in partnerships. By creating and evaluating models for such collaboration we will help others to undertake similar work at scale. We think this is critical for reversing the continuing marginalization of smallholder farmers in agricultural research.
This final workshop should launch a longer-term process of ‘bringing farmers to the table’ by ensuring their This final workshop should launch a longer-term process of ‘bringing farmers to the table’ by ensuring their engagement in future project design and implementation. We invite you to join in shaping this vision by discussing options for coalitions and coordinating mechanisms to take things forward.
