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| 4.0 Causes and effects of genetic erosion of plant genetic resources
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Abstract
This paper discusses the debate around farmers' management of local plant
genetic resources. It seek to develop a theoretical framework for analysing
farmers management of plant genetic resources using examples from fieldwork
carried out in 1995-1997 among farmers in Tanzania with a focus on the 1994/95
growing season. The study is part of a research programme involving several
institutions and coordinated by CDR, titled Sustainable Agriculture in Semi-Arid
Tanzania (SASA).
Two very different systems of plant genetic resources management have developed
in most developing countries, including Tanzania. One is a formal science-based
plant genetic resource management system consisting of state institutions for
plant conservation, breeding and seed multiplication and distribution. The other
is an informal plant genetic resource management system based on farmers' local
knowledge. Neither of the two plant genetic resource management systems are
adequate for ensuring sustainable plant genetic resource use by small-scale
farmers.
The research suggests that the following three elements must be included
when studying farmers management of local plant genetic resources: (i) an understanding
of the concept of local knowledge vis a vis scientific knowledge, (ii) a conceptualisation
of farmers institutions for managing plant genetic resources, and (iii) an analysis
of the social, gender and cultural contexts of local plant genetic resource
management.
Farmers' local experimentation and collection of knowledge are not based
on scientific theoretical models, but emerge from strong interests in knowledge
with practical local application and which provides options for improving peoples'
livelihood. Local technical knowledge, skills and capacities to manage plant
genetic resources are embedded in the cultural, ecological and sociological
context of the community. In the case of plant genetic resource management,
such local knowledge evolves around the crop cycle and the three main groups
of management practices are (i) seed selection, (ii) treatment and storage of
seed and (iii) seed multiplication and exchange.
The strength of local seed selection is its ability to adapt varieties
to the specific cultural, economic and social requirements of local farming
systems. Seed is often, but not always, stored separate from the harvested crop
and a range of local seed treatment and storage techniques is used by farmers
to ensure viable seed for future planting seasons. While most households are
self-sufficient with seed of frequently used varieties, new or less common varieties
are frequently exchanged within or between communities. Community seed exchange
also serves as a back-up source of seed in years of deficit harvest or following
droughts or other emergencies.
Local institutions for managing plant genetic resources only seldom take
the shape of organisations and commonly consist of shared norms and practices
within a community or ethnic group of people. While local institutions for natural
resource management are often associated with conflict over access and use,
plant genetic resources are renewable and therefore are seldom the cause of
conflict over access at the local level. Plant genetic resource management is
largely the product of social processes and institutions in the community level.
Limitations to local plant genetic resource management include, (i) constraints
in terms of knowledge about genetics (lack of support from scientists), (ii)
limited access to globally or nationally available plant genetic resources,
and (iii) declining capacity of local resource management institutions. There
are potentials for synergy if the weak links between the two systems of plant
genetic resource management were enhanced to develop a participatory partnership,
which takes advantage of the comparative strengths of each of the two systems.
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1.0 Introduction
The international community has historically taken an ex-situ conservation
approach to plant genetic resources conservation, collecting farmers' intra-species
diversity of local landraces for storage in ex-situ gene banks. This served
the dual purpose of (i) conserving crop diversity, rapidly being lost in farmers
fields, and (ii) making the collected germ plasm accessible to the formal-sector
and science-based plant genetic resource community.
The explicit demand from breeders for access to a diversity of plant genetic
resources emerged after the turn of the century when Mendel's law on heredity
was re-discovered and applied in practical crop breeding. Plant collection missions
were primarily carried out by breeding centres in industrialised countries with
the purpose of immediate use of collected samples in breeding work rather than
conservation. However, conservation became increasingly important as the introduction
of modern varieties replaced indigenous, locally adapted landraces. This trend
accelerated in the 1970's with the establishment of a number of international
gene banks and the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (now International
Plant Genetic Resource Institute, IPGRI), with the mandate of co-ordinating
conservation efforts. From a limited number of gene banks in the 1970's, the
number of gene banks rapidly increased in the 1980's and there are today more
than 4000 registered (Pistorius 1997).
The users of these have almost exclusively been public and private plant breeders
and scientists. While plant improvement programmes in industrialised countries
in the early years of plant collection relied on the introduction of unchanged
whole plants, the breeding emphasis gradually shifted toward improvement of
already existing improved varieties. This trend was strengthened after the Second
World War by emphasis on hybridisation for some crops, such as maize and sorghum,
and has further accelerated with the development of advanced biotechnologies
in the 1980's. Today, commercial breeders in industrialised countries demand
plant genetic resources with specific genetic characteristics, and the use of
landraces collected among farmers and stored in is limited. The exception to
this rule is the occasional need for genetic material that is disease or pest
resistant. This trend of further improving on existing improved varieties, rather
than using farmers' landraces as the basis for plant improvement, is less pronounced
among plant breeders in developing countries.
Modern plant breeding has had a profound impact on crop production in developing
countries since its introduction on a massive scale in the early 1960's. Modern
plant breeding, especially in high-potential and irrigated parts of Asia and
Latin America, has had success in replacing landraces with modern varieties
on farmers' fields for major crops, such as rice, wheat and maize. Modern varieties
cover more than half of the cultivated area of these crops and contribute an
even higher proportion to total production. However, the majority of farmers
in Africa, rely wholly or partly on local plant genetic resources for their
crop production and on indigenous knowledge about genetic resource development,
maintenance, storage, processing and end-use. Many small-scale farmers in developing
countries use local landraces as their preferred planting material. Recent studies
have shown that the process of adopting modern varieties is not linear, and
even adopting farmers continue to cultivate some of their landraces on small
land parcels (Brush 1992, Smale, Heisey & Heathers 1995). While commercially
oriented small-scale farmers adopt modern varieties for their marketable crops,
they commonly continue to cultivate local landraces of food crops for their
subsistence. In marginal, low-potential rainfed areas in particular, farmers
depend on landraces as their main or only source of planting material for all
their crops.
While conservation and scientific use of genetic diversity are subjects of
world-wide interest, the social and cultural institutions which generate agro-biodiversity
are hardly studied at all. Until recently, national and international plant
genetic resource institutions have not recognised local peoples' knowledge and
management of plant genetic resources as a useful resource and have instead
concentrated on collection and ex-situ conservation of local plant genetic resources,
plant breeding and seed production activities. "Indigenous" knowledge has recently
gained recognition at the international level, e.g. in the preamble to the Convention
of Biological Diversity (UNCED 1992a), in Agenda 21 (UNCED 1992),[Particularly in chapter
14 (Agriculture and Rural Development) and chapter 15 (Conservation of Biological
Resources) of Agenda 21.]
and in the Global Plan of Action for Plant Genetic Resources
for Food and Agriculture (FAO 1996). This has resulted in the emergence of a
range of new initiatives and participatory forms of co-operation. These initiatives
are now being carried out in a limited number of developing countries. However,
co-operation between the formal plant genetic resource institutions and farmers
in developing countries is limited, and the flow of information and genetic
resources are almost always one-directional and carried out in a top-down manner.
For the vast majority of small-scale farmers in developing countries, local
knowledge and management of plant genetic resources are of crucial importance
and an integrated part of their crop production systems. Farmers manage plant
genetic resource diversity at all three biological levels: the species, the
variety and the genetic levels. Farmers manage and use a portfolio of varieties,
including both local landraces and modern varieties, to balance their various
needs and to limit risks.
The genetic characteristics of the planting material play an important role
for the farmers' ability to ensure household food security and for their ability
to cope with the frequently changing social and physical conditions of crop
production. Farmers have three sources of access to diversity of plant genetic
resources: (i) existing landraces within a given farming community, (ii) exchange
of landraces with other farming communities and (iii) purchace or exchange of
modern varieties. For a large part of the world's farmers, local landraces have
continued to play a crucial role in their farming systems. For a number of reasons
small-scale farmers in developing countries tend to adopt modern varieties gradually
and partially, and farmers cultivate a portfolio of varieties and only rarely
follow the conventional modernisation advice to cultivate annually purchased
modern varieties only.
In summary, there are three major reasons why many farmers have continued to
cultivate their local landraces and rely on their own management of local plant
genetic resources: (i) landraces are well adapted to local growing conditions;
(ii) farmers have timely access to seed of a good physiological quality of a
range of landraces at an affordable price; and (iii) the modern varieties available
to farmers often require high standards of external farm inputs, access to seeds
is often unreliable and only a few varieties may be available at high cost.
However, while local plant genetic resource management systems are well adapted
to local farming environments, they are not highly productive and could benefit
greatly by assistance from plant genetic resource management institutions. If
better interaction between local and formal plant genetic resource management
systems is to be established, there needs to be a better understanding of local
plant genetic resource management systems. This study seeks to contribute to
this understanding through a theoretical discussions with use of examples from
a Tanzanian case study.
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1.1 Relevance of studying farmers' management of plant genetic resources
in Tanzania
Until recently, interventions by the Government of Tanzania (GOT) and donors
have supported the development of formal plant genetic resource management institutions,
while neglecting or even undermining farmers' own local institutions for plant
genetic resource management. Today, there are more than 50 research institutes
and stations staffed by 350 graduate-level researchers and some 1400 technicians
and assistants in Tanzania (World Bank 1994). In one way or another, many of
these institutions are responsible for plant genetic resource management, including:
(i) collection and conservation of plant genetic resources, (ii) commodity plant
breeding programmes for all important crops, (iii) implementation of a seed
regulatory framework, and (iv) multiplication and distribution of seed.
These institutions evolved during the 1970's and 1980's and support a science-based
approach to "modernising agricultural production" in general and management
of plant genetic resources in particular. Particularly, during the modernisation
period in the 1970's and 1980's, the Tanzanian agricultural policy actively
discouraged farmers' local plant genetic resource management and their use of
local landraces. This took a number of different forms, including: pricing policies
(subsidising prices of modern varieties of seed and corresponding inputs); credit
policies (tying loans to purchase modern varieties); extension service promoting
use of modern varieties; and a general crude belief among state employees and
party members that anything modern (western) is good and local traditions are
backwards and conservative (Raikes 1988).
In spite of an effort to strengthen farmers' collective voice through farming
systems research, there has been a general lack of farmers' participation in
the agricultural research process and lack of accountability by state institutions
to farmers. Tanzanian farmers have rarely been consulted and involved in the
work carried out by state-financed plant genetic resource management institutions.
Plant genetic resource collection missions have regarded farmers as potential
sources of crop varieties, not as sources of knowledge regarding plant genetic
resource management or partners in their conservation. Commodity plant breeding
programs have primarily been based on on-station trials and only to a limited
extent, have taken into account the results of farming system research. Seed
regulations have been based on international standards, which are incompatible
with farmers' management practices. Finally, seed multiplication and distribution
have been centrally organised without involvement of farmers other than as customers.
The effects on agricultural development of these state organisations are varied
and not easily assessable. Direct benefits for peasant farmers are likely to
be quite limited, in particular for food crops and especially for farmers in
semi-arid areas. A simple, and far from comprehensive, measurement of success
is the farmers' adoption rate of modern varieties. In 1994 only 2 % of the maize
crop in Tanzania were planted with purchaced certified seed of modern varieties
(World Bank 1994). This is a very low level, however, a considerably larger
proportion of land is likely to be cultivated with retained seed of hybrid and
composite maize varieties. This is reflected in the study area (see section
1.3), where only few of the farmers, interviewed during the survey, purchased
modern varieties of seed and only for a few crops (sunflower, hybrid maize and
rice) and in very limited volumes. The vast majority of the study area is planted
with seed of landraces, which are developed and maintained by farmers themselves,
using local knowledge of plant genetic resources.
The agricultural policy of Tanzania has undergone drastic changes as part of
the structural adjustment programme, including: (i) termination of parastatal
crop marketing organisations and hand over to private traders, (ii) abolishment
of price subsidies (iii) withdrawal of direct state involvement in import and
distribution of fertilisers and other chemical inputs, and (iv) opening of the
seed market to multinational private seed companies and scaling down of support
for Tanseed.
As a consequence of the economic crisis, the budget of the GOT has been severely
reduced and, with assistance from the World Bank, the Ministry of Agriculture
is currently undergoing a reform, which aims for a drastical reduction of the
number of staff, including the abolishment of staff at the Regional level and
the relocation of staff from Dar es Salaam to the District level, while improving
the efficiency of the remaining staff. However, the joint policy document outlining
this reform: "Tanzania. The challenge of Reforms: Growth, Incomes and Welfare"
(World Bank 1996), fails to address the inadequacy of a continued modernisation
approach to agricultural research, including plant genetic resource management.
Farmers' unsupported local plant genetic resource management systems are responsible
for providing seeds for the vast majority of food crops in Tanzania. In spite
of its importance, very little is known about the quality and social dynamics
of local plant genetic resource management. The links and interactions between
local plant genetic resource management systems and formal plant genetic resource
institutions are limited and weak.
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1.2 Study focus
The international debates on plant genetic resources and small-scale farmers
are multidisciplinary and have been carried out in different fora. There are
particularly two groups of issues: (i) those related to access to plant genetic
resources, and (ii) those related to conservation and sustainable use of plant
genetic resources.
The debate about access to plant genetic resources has been on-going
for the past 15 years with the participation of a wide variety of actors. The
three main fora have been: The Convention on Biological Diversity (which in
1992 established national sovereignty over genetic resources), The International
Commission for Plant Genetic Resources, under the auspices of FAO (which has
particularly introduced the concept of 'farmers rights' to plant genetic resources),
and The Uruguay round agreement of WTO (which stipulates that all signatory
countries shall introduce patent laws for plant genetic resource). While the
issues relating to access to plant genetic resources are relevant for understanding
the long-term distribution of benefits derived from use of plant genetic resources,
they are not the topic of this working paper.
During the 1990's, debate about sustainable conservation and use of
plant genetic resources has flourished within international and national public
agricultural research institutions. A temporary consensus was reached with the
adoption of a Global Plan of Action for the sustainable use of plant genetic
resources in 1996 (FAO 1996). Theoretically, this consensus can be characterised
as a drastic departure from previous conceptual approaches, and the basis of
the recommendations of Global Plan of Action constitutes a change in paradigm.
While a consensus is growing over what to do, the discrepancy between this consensus
and what is done by mainstream research and development institutions remains
large. In particular studies at the community and household levels
of elements of plant genetic resource management in the changing socio-economic
context in developing countries have been rare.
This study aims to develop a framework for analysing farmers' management of
local plant genetic resources. The study objectives are:
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| to improve the understanding of farmers' management of local plant genetic
resources in Tanzania, and
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| to assess the potential benefits of establishing a participatory partnership
between formal
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plant genetic resource institutions and farmers' local institutions for management
of plant genetic resources.
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1.3 Fieldwork methodology
This working paper is based on extracts from fieldwork material collected as
part of a collaborative research program titled "Sustainable Agriculture in
Semi-Arid Africa" (SASA). Fieldwork was carried out in the Ruaha River Basin
in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, between 1994 and 1997. The study area
includes the semi arid parts of Iringa district (Ikuvala and Mkulula villages)
in Iringa Region and Mbarali district in Mbeya Region (Nyeregete village). The
three studied villages represent three different types of farming systems in
semi-arid parts of Tanzania.
Mkulula village is situated in Ismani Division and located approximately 3
hours drive on a poor- quality dirt road from Iringa town in the Southern Highlands
of Tanzania, which is 500 kilometres from Dar es Salaam. The area has a mean
annual rainfall of 431 mm (6-year mean). The distribution of rainfall is highly
variable from year to year as well as within the agricultural season. Only 50
years ago Ismani was densely covered with natural forest. Since then, cultivation
has gradually expanded into the area from neighboring highland areas. Large-scale
forest clearing occurred in the 1950's and 1960's during which time "slash and
burn" agriculture was practiced with maize, sorghum and millet as the major
crops. In the 1970's, in connection with the forceful resettlement of the population
into nuclear villages, maize became the main crop. By the mid-1980's deforestation
was widespread, soil fertility was low and this, in combination with rainfall
levels, meant that maize was no longer sustainable.
Table 1. Cropping pattern in Mkulula village (acre per household) 1993/94
Crop |
Poor |
Average |
Better off |
Mean |
Maize |
1.1 |
2.7 |
1.5 |
1.9 |
Sorghum |
4.3 |
2.6 |
5.5 |
3.9 |
Sunflower |
0.6 |
1.3 |
2.1 |
1.3 |
Cotton |
0.0 |
0.1 |
0.2 |
0.1 |
Groundnuts |
0.1 |
0.2 |
0.1 |
0.1 |
Other |
0.1 |
0.0 |
0.3 |
0.1 |
Total |
6.2 |
6.9 |
9.7 |
7.4 |
Source: Household questionnaire survey of 30 households in
Mkulula village.
During the 1980's and 1990's sorghum gradually became the main crop, and it
now covers more than half the total cultivated area. The introduction of a successful
modern variety as an emergency seed supply by an NGO, following the 1991-1992
drought, further assisted a change in cropping pattern. As shown in table 1,
sorghum is relatively more important for poor farmers, who cultivate sorghum
on more than two thirds of their cultivated land.
Ikuvala village is situated in Iringa District and is close to the Dar es Salaam
- Iringa road, some 20 km outside Iringa town. The annual rainfall is about
600 mm with variable distribution from year to year as well as within the agricultural
season. The land use has gradually been intensified over the past 40-50 years.
In particular, the forced change in settlement pattern to nucled village units
in 1974 greatly intensified land use. Finger millet and sorghum were historically
important crops, which were replaced by maize during the 1970's and 1980's.
Table 2. Cropping pattern in Ikuvala village (acre per household) 1993/94
Crops |
Better off |
Average |
Poor |
Maize |
10.7 |
6.0 |
3.1 |
Sunflower |
1.4 |
1.8 |
0.7 |
Tomato |
1.6 |
0.9 |
0.4 |
Cowpea |
0.9 |
0.2 |
0.0 |
Finger millet |
0.6 |
0.0 |
0.0 |
Beans |
0.5 |
0.0 |
0.1 |
Total |
15.7 |
8.9 |
4.3 |
Source: Household questionnaire survey of 30 households in
Ikuvala village.
Table 2 shows that maize is the dominant crop, occupying about two thirds of
the cultivated area for all three wealth categories. As a result of trade liberalisation
in the 1990's, tomato cultivation has become the most important cash crop.
Njelegete village is situated in Mbarali District in Mbeya Region. Usangu Plains
comprises 1500 square kilometres and has an altitude of approximately 1000 metres
above sea level. Usangu Plains has one rainy season from late November/early
December to April/May with a rainfall gradient decreasing from approximately
1000 mm p.a. in the West to 400 mm p.a. in the Northeast. Land use on Usangu
Plains is roughly (i) one quarter cultivated land, (ii) one quarter grazing
land and (iii) half 'bush', part of which is infested with tsetse flies. A number
of permanent rivers cut though Usangu Plains enabling farmers to irrigate part
of the arable land. Rice is the dominant irrigated crop while maize, beans,
millet and groundnuts are cultivated on dryland fields for household consumption.
Pastoralists with limited riverbank cultivation traditionally occupied Usangu
plains. Livestock are today more integrated with crop production, and ox-mechanisation
is widespread. Usangu Plains has experienced a dynamic demographic change over
a 30-year period, with rapidly increasing population resulting from immigration
from surrounding areas. Commercialisation has been even more dramatic, transforming
the area from a traditional pastoral society into an intensively irrigated rice
economy with a high degree of social differentiation and, in the Tanzanian context,
a well developed labour market.
Table 3. Rice area and wealth category in Nyeletete village
Wealth category |
High |
Average |
Low |
Total |
0-1.75 acres |
0 (0%) |
3 (17%) |
6 (75%) |
9 (30%) |
2-2.5 acres |
1 (25%) |
7 (39%) |
2 (25%) |
10 (33%) |
more than 2.5 acres |
3 (75%) |
8 (44%) |
0 (0%) |
11 (37%) |
Total |
4 (100%) |
18 (100%) |
8 (100%) |
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Source: Household questionnaire survey of 30 households in
Njelegete village.
Rice is by far the most important crop. Statistical analysis of the data, on
which table 2 is based,shows a significant relationship between cultivation
of rice and wealth at 1% chi-square level. No similar significant relationship
is found between the cultivation of maize and wealth.
A number of qualitative and quantitative surveys were carried out in each of
the three villages. The village surveys started with one or two group meetings
with farmers in order to explain the aim of the study and to get a preliminary
idea of crop production and management of plant genetic resources in the village.
During subsequent meetings with village leaders and other key persons, an inventory
of the village was established and used as a basis for selecting 30 farmers
in each village to participate in a quantitative household survey. By using
a stratified random methodology, 30 households were selected, i.e. 10 households
were randomly selected from three different subdivisions (Balosi) within the
village. A number of qualitative in-depth interviews of key informants were
carried out in connection with testing and improving the questionnaires.
A wealth ranking exercise was undertaken in each village, during which a smaller
group of key informants were asked to develop a set of wealth ranking criteria
applicable to their community. This resulted in the establishment of three wealth
categories in each of the three villages: 'poor', 'average' and 'better-off'.
As these wealth criteria are specific to the individual community, their contents
are not consistent between the three villages, but are the farmers' own holistic
perception of wealth rather than a calculated objective measure of wealth. For
example, all three villages have a category of poor farmers. In Mkulula and
Ikuvala villages, the 'poor farmer' category consists of farmers with access
to few natural resources and whose farming situation and dependency relationship
to better-off farmers is such that it is unlikely that they will ever break
out of their poverty trap. In Njelegete, the 'poor farmer' category is defined
as farmers who own less than one and three-quarter acres used for the irrigation
of rice. Poor farmers in Njelegete are much better off than poor farmers in
the two dryland villages. Firstly, they do not work for other farmers as casual
laborers and secondly, the cash income from the sale of rice from one and three
quarters acres does in some cases exceed the cash income of even farmers in
the better-off category in the two dryland villages. The real poor in Njelegete
village are the seasonal migrant workers from outside Usangu, who are not part
of the household survey.
A small group of knowledgeable farmers in each village were asked to rank the
30 farmers (who had been randomly selected to participate in the household survey),
using the wealth categories previously established by the farmers themselves.
This assessment was done in a participatory and holistic manner, and each selected
farmer was discussed at length. The farmers were not simply ranked according
to their access to resources, and some farmers whose resource allotment should
have placed them in the 'average' wealth category were rated 'poor' because
they were drunkards or otherwise not serious farmers.
Thematic interviews of specialized groups were carried out to identify and
characterize local land races. Farmers have a wealth of knowledge and a three-hour
group interview would often only cover landraces of one crop in one village.
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2.0 Framework for studying local plant genetic resource
management
This section provides a framework for analysing farmers' management of local
plant genetic resources. Central concepts are discussed and illustrated with
examples from Tanzania and other parts of Africa.
2.1 Local knowledge of plant genetic resources
There has been an increasing interest over the past decade in what has been
termed "Indigenous Technical Knowledge" (IDS 1979), "Indigenous Agricultural
Knowledge" (Bebbington et.al. 1993), Traditional Knowledge, Farmers' Knowledge,
Rural Peoples' Knowledge (Scoones & Thompson 1994) and Local Knowledge,
and its relevance for natural resource management. Partly, this is because of
an increasing scepticism towards the western scientific paradigm (which has
so far been the basis for natural resource management regimes used by formal
institutions at the national and international levels), and partly it reflects
a growing ability of NGOs and CBOs to make their voices heard (Berg 1996).
"Indigenous knowledge" is a confusing term as it means "of local origin"
when referring to knowledge, and can mean suppressed or colonised when referring
to people. "Indigenous" is a structural concept through which a specific people
is linked to the state. Knowledge about local natural resources, however, is
embedded in cultural and social institutions and is not limited to an indigenous
people. "Traditional knowledge" gives the false impression that such
knowledge is static, rather than dynamic and continuously evolving. Farmers'
knowledge has been used as the politically correct term by some NGOs which
argue for the recognition and protection of the intellectual property rights
of farming communities.
"Rural peoples' knowledge" acknowledges the social and cultural as
well as the dynamic aspects of local knowledge and comprises "cultural knowledge,
producing and reproducing mutual understanding and identity among the members
of a farming community, where local technical knowledge, skills and capacities
are inextricably linked to non-technical ones, e.g. cultural, ecological and
sociological factors" (Scoones & Thompson 1994). This is a comprehensive
and useful term. However, the important dividing line is not whether knowledge
is held by indigenous or non-indigenous people, or farmers, or rural or urban
people, but whether it is about scientific or other forms of knowledge.
While accepting the above described concept of rural peoples' knowledge, the
term local knowledge will be used in this paper in order to emphasise
that what is important is not that the knowledge is held by a specific type
of people, but rather that it is locally developed and not produced by independent
scientific analysis.
Both local knowledge and scientific knowledge are based on observations of
natural phenomena; in the local knowledge framework, however, collection of
information is driven by concerns of practical importance for local persons'
livelihood rather than by theoretical models. Local and scientific knowledge
represent two different paradigms for understanding and interpreting information.
While science is divided into disciplines, each with its theories and methodologies,
and oriented towards quantification and establishing causalities, the paradigm
of local knowledge is holistic, contextual and behaviour-based. These two approaches
are in priciple not mutually exclusive, although this is often the case in practice.
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2.2 Local institutions for managing plant genetic resources
The conventional natural resource management approaches have focused on the
supply and demand of the resource itself, rather than on its users. Today, most
observers agree that formal and informal institutions mediating access to and
use of natural resources coexist at the local level, and that they often interact
in a complex and dynamic manner. Formal institutions are backed by state organisations
and enforced through the rules of law. Informal institutions are often not associated
with an organisation (Uphoff 1986) and exist through mutual agreements and relations
of power and authority, and are enforced by socially accepted moral rules (Thompsen
1991). Informal institutions may be defined as "complexes of norms and behaviours
that persist over time by serving collectively valued purposes" (Uphoff 1986).
It is important to distinguish between rules and practice. Some observers view
rules as a means of prescribing room for manoeuvre (Ostrom 1990). Individual
farmers' practices do not always adhere to rules set out by formal or informal
resource management, and social practices which do not follow rules play an
important role in challenging the existing institutional order (Gore 1993).
Local natural resource management institutions regulate access to use of a
given limited resource among members of a community and mediate conflicts over
access to and use of that resource.
There are important differences between plant genetic resources and resources,
such as water or land:
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| plant genetic resources are able to reproduce themselves if well managed;
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| it is possible to enhance the agricultural value of plant genetic resources
by applying
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selection pressure and;
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