| Editor’s
note: This is the second installment of a series by Matt Dillon,
executive director of the Nonprofit Organic
Seed Alliance, covering the First World Conference on
Organic Seed, which took place in Rome this past July.
Matt’s first piece ] in this series set up the efforts
by the organic seed community and Big Agriculture to sit down
at the table and discuss how the two seemingly diametrically
opposed entities might coexist. This installment focuses on
the fledgling Community Seed Network (CSN), an international
effort to preserve diversity, protect farmers’ rights
and safeguard their knowledge.
September 28, 2004: In 1980, Cuba was the largest
user of agrichemicals per hectare in the world. With the collapse
of the Soviet economy, Cuba lost its purchasing power for these
inputs and the country’s agricultural yield began to plummet,
eventually reaching a bottom at 60 percent below historical
highs. As the floor kept falling and funding for centralized
agricultural production and research disappeared, Cuba was forced
to rethink its approach to agriculture. In doing so, a “chain
reaction of agricultural biodiversity and knowledge was created,”
according to Humberto Rios Labrada of the Cuban National Institute
of Agricultural Sciences. Labrada, a member of the newly formed
coalition the Community Seed Network (CSN), spoke during the
‘Biodiversity’ session of the First World Conference
on Organic Seed in Rome, which took place July 5-7.
The first meeting of the CSN was held the evening prior to the
official opening of the conference, with, International Foundation
for Organic Agriculture (IFOAM) steering and committee representative
Bernward Geier facilitating. Geier said he saw the meeting as
an opportunity for the grassroots seed community to discuss
critical issues and to consider a unified approach toward working
with conference organizers on future efforts. The group of 35
to 40 bonded at the first meeting and would meet throughout
the conference in “hallway sessions” as well as
at a post-conference critique and ‘Next Steps’ session.
From Uganda to Peru, Sri Lanka to New England, the CSN members
shared in their valuation of farmer rights and farmer knowledge
as the keystones of healthy seed systems.
The economic, social and agricultural history that Labrada
presented of his homeland Cuba represents one vision of the
need for developing a localized seed system— a shared
goal of the CSN—and served as a template for discussing
the overall concerns of the network. Here’s how he told
the story:
In Cuba, as in most countries, political policy dictated
research with the public as the final ‘beneficiary’
of this trickle-down wisdom and knowledge. During the heyday
of their ‘green revolution,’ Cuban farmers had
little choice about which crops or varieties they could plant.
They received ‘approved’ varieties that had been
developed and screened off-farm via a hierarchy of research
institutes, national scientific forums, agricultural ministers
and provincial leaders. The producers had minimal input in
this process and felt that the scientists selected for a narrow
vision of valuable traits without taking the time to gauge
the varieties overall adaptability to the farms and the farmers.
(Author’s Note: This is a situation not so different
from a U.S. farmer with an agronomic crop, whose contract
dictates the crop varieties used—varieties that are
bred and evaluated in a consolidated, hierarchical, and off-farm
system.)
The Cuban financial crisis caused budget cuts in formal research
and a shift in the overall agricultural economy from monoculture
production for export to diversified production for local
markets. “Together, these dramatic changes are opening
up the space for paying attention to participatory seed improvement
and distribution practices under organic and low-input agriculture,”
said Labrado, adding that researchers are paying close attention
to the results of this developing decentralized system.
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The first step in plant breeding is gaining familiarity with
existing crop genetic materials, or germplasm. Diversity ‘seed
fairs’ and organic evaluation plots at the Cuban Farmer
Field School provide farmers with a diverse choice of varieties
developed under both formal and informal seed systems. In a
country were hunger is a neighbor for many living in rural communities,
yield is the consummate trait, said Labrado, but farmers are
also “rediscovering culinary properties and desirable
bean shapes” of heirloom varieties. Once varieties have
been chosen, farmers work with researchers to design breeding
projects. The formal researchers stand back, teaching basic
design strategies while allowing the farmer to define the parameters
of the project. “Scientists see themselves as facilitators
as opposed to the star or the leader,” said Labrado.
The Cuban researchers also collect data in order to gauge
genetic improvement. In a four-year period, 86 percent of
the farmers involved with the program had a positive genetic
advance. Profitability is also measured and compared. Looking
at per hectare costs, yields and income for pumpkin crops,
researchers found that, sown under similar organic conditions,
varieties bred in organic systems had a benefit cost ratio
of 1.5 to 1, compared to 0.34 to 1 for those bred in high-input
systems. This translated into a net gain in income of 372
pesos per hectare for the organic system and a loss of 462
pesos per hectare for the high-input system.
In addition to profitably adapting genetics for local organic
conditions, the farmers are also decentralizing the distribution
system. On-farm multiplication of these cooperatively bred
varieties and local distribution amongst farmer networks decreases
the cost of the seed input and adds to the net profit of the
farm.
Labrada pointed out the long-term nature of the project and
suggested that development of local seed systems can occur
in tandem with national and international seed development,
and not necessarily as an absolute alternative. Labrada said
he felt that Cuba had learned a difficult but important lesson
in the last decade, one from which he expressed hope that
all would benefit. “Encouraging diversity and participation
in strengthening local seed systems makes crop breeding more
energetically efficient, socially available and more profitable.”
The “chain reaction of agricultural biodiversity and
knowledge” that Labrada referred to brought farmers
into a place of respect and empowerment in developing germplasm.
No longer simply ‘end-users,’ they are now involved
in the full cycle of crop improvement.
A similar success story was shared by Javier Rovira of the
Argentinean Association of Technology and Social Justice.
The association runs a program called The Seeds of Life, which
supports local seed production and distribution, preserving
biodiversity and access to seed for community level organic
production. These community farms, or huertas, are
usually subsistence based and cannot afford seed inputs. The
program works to build community controlled seed banks and
production systems that serve more than 7,000 families who
live and work on these huertas.
| "We’ve got to keep promoting
this exchange. The usual ‘extension-based’
or university systems don’t work for the local organic
farmer. It’s up to us to create something new.”
." |
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Cristinia Micheloni of Italy, Ahmed Shalaby of Egypt, Maria
Ramos of Spain and Mario Tapia of Peru were amongst the others
who presented during the conference’s parallel sessions,
inspiring the audience to healthy discussion that carried
out into hallways and over the table at meals. A wealth of
varying approaches to on-farm breeding, production and distribution
sparked the imaginations of many in attendance. Judging by
the diversity of ideas and origin of those in attendance,
IFOAM did a nice job of putting word out beyond North America
and Europe, bridging the ‘North-South Divide’
that can often mark international research conferences. The
overall positive and progressive approach that these researchers
presented was also a welcome contrast for many from the complaints
of industry and hard-edged concerns of activists. What came
forth were proactive solutions to the seed dilemmas that all
nations face.
The organization I work for (Organic Seed Alliance) is involved
with creating farmer-based seed education for production and
breeding, and so it was inevitable that I would gravitate
to CSN members and their stories. Over the course of four
days, I attended presentations, lunch discussions and late-night
meals (the Slow Food movement is alive and well in Rome) with
members of the CSN and enjoyed many success stories. Yet these
inspirational moments were tempered with strong expressions
of fear and anger related to global seed issues and their
effects on local systems. While ‘coexistence’
was the hot-button issue, CSN members also expressed concern
that harmonization of seed regulations might be helpful for
farmers in Europe and North America but would add unreasonable
burdens in smaller countries—such as any mandate to
plant only ‘registered’ organic seed listed within
a database. The often-repeated sentiment was that any regulatory
steps cannot weaken the genetic options or historical rights
of farmers.
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5 Point Text:
1. Ensure and protect
the rights of farmers, especially
those 1.4 billion individuals from farm families
which depend on farm-raised seeds as the basis
of their local food security, including protecting
the centers of global genetic resources from GMO
contamination.
2. Cooperate to
reinvigorate public plant and animal breeding
capacities to ensure a supply of crops and breeds
that respect farmer and consumer choice and that
meet local needs of organic agriculture.
3. Ensure that
organic foundation seed stock be free of adventitious
presence of GMO-derived DNA sequences.
4. Initiate Transparent
and independent evaluation of
the impacts of GMO on local food security and
the environment.
5. Address the
needs for protocols for redressing responsibility,
liability and the need for notification regarding
GMO crops, including the adaptation of both the
precautionary and polluter-pay principles. |
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These concerns were brought together in what we initially
termed our 5 Point Text (see sidebar). The text did not encompass
all concerns or purport to be a finished product but rather
focused on the key issues. The language is now being developed
into a proposal by individuals within the CSN and will be
forwarded to conference organizers and submitted for possible
funding to implement development strategies.
Michael Sligh policy director for the Rural
Advancement Foundation International (RAFI-USA) brought
many of the text’s points to the table as talking points
in the initial pre-conference gathering. He said he felt that
the coalition had consensus across key issues while representing
a wide range of countries and that the group did a good job
of bringing the big issues to the floor. Sligh also had suggestions
for next-steps. “The FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations] made a public commitment to bring resources
to on-farm plant breeding and local seed systems,” he
said. “We need to follow up on this commitment. We’ve
got to make concrete suggestions and continue to raise challenges
when appropriate.” Sligh suggested that the group continue
to explore models of seed systems that work, identify groups
and individuals to join the network, and build a mechanism
for funding farmer-based projects.
“We learned a lot about the value of exchange amongst
farmers,” said Felicia Echeverria of the Costa Rican
National Organic Program, reflected on the CSN presentations
and discussions. Increasing farmer-led, farmer-based education
is a tract the group should take, she said. “We’ve
got to keep promoting this exchange. The usual ‘extension-based’
or university systems don’t work for the local organic
farmer. It’s up to us to create something new.”
Matt Dillon has been involved for decades with the conservation
and development of seed resources, first as a seed farmer,
then as Executive Director of the Abundant Life Seed Foundation.
A year ago the ALSF reorganized itself as the Organic Seed
Alliance (OSA), with a stronger emphasis on farmer education,
seed research and the charitable distribution of open-pollinated
seed. As Executive Director of the Organic Seed Alliance,
Matt manages its education, research and World Seed Fund programs.
He is currently overseeing a regional seed education program
which is a collaboration of state agricultural universities,
seed industry professionals and organic farmers.
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