Participatory plant breeding impacts in Cuba
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Abstract
diagnostic phase of the Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB)
project as a complementary strategy in Cuba, it was found that
more than 85 % farmers had not used formal seed; therefore,
most of them could not get the resulting varieties. It has been
confirmed in other locations and productive systems.
Consequently, an alternative tool was employed to introduce
diversity into locations, biodiversity fairs, which were designed
and performed in the late 90�??s and are considered an important
world PPB contribution, mainly aimed to let seed flow from
research institutions to farmers and vice versa. Once the fairs
are celebrated, farmers start their own experiments in
cooperatives and land holdings, establishing a wide net that
can not be arranged by any other breeding program without
involving farmers, since the current input restrictions make
each farm becomes a different ecosystem. This PPB approach
enables a specific varietal response selection, enhanced by
GE interaction, which is a hard problem in centralized programs
when wide-response materials are selected through precise
technological packages with guaranteed inputs, that is more
an exception than a rule under the conditions of our country.
Farmer experimentation has achieved significant impacts on
an increased field efficiency, recorded by higher yields per
plot and diversity for using more plant and animal species, so
that the farmers and their family may have a better livelihood.
The highest social impact of the project is that a learning
process is established among farmers, researchers and
decision makers. All of them have changed some of their
previous work approaches and conceptions by acquiring a
more integrated and systemic comprehension of how local
agricultural systems work.
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