Resilient Seeds

Farmers’ seed systems under stress

Estimates suggest that 80% of the seeds on which smallholder farmers in developing countries depend is saved on farm or obtained through informal distribution channels, such as exchanges between farmers, community sharing systems, and local markets. Women farmers play key roles in farmer seed systems, although they are often overlooked by researchers and development personnel, policies, and programs.

This high level of seed autonomy among farmers masks the fact that, almost everywhere, local seed systems are under stress. Agricultural intensification and commoditization, privatization of natural resources, and the strong concentration and expansion of corporate power in the life science industries (including the seed industry) are contributing to a decline in collective local management of plant genetic resources for both conservation and sustainable use.

Many farming households have become more individualized in terms of decision- making and deployment of knowledge, labour, capital and seeds. Traditional seed exchange relationships have become weaker in many areas. Farming practices are b ecoming more market oriented, and this increased involvement in markets has both benefits and costs depending on local context . Large-scale rural- to -urban migration is contributing to a decline in farming in many countries or transforming small-scale family farming into contract farming. It is also leading to the feminization of agriculture, increasing the workload and responsibilities of women in many regions. These trends are affecting local seed production, selection, storage, distribution, and exchange practices, for example, through substitution of local varieties with hybrids that can be easily purchased at local markets.

Climate change has begun to put additional pressure on farmers ’ seed and food production systems and on the multiple functions that they fulfill . Although, in many areas, farmers continue to maintain crop diversity, a significant reduction in the number of crops as well as area planted is occurring. Findings from the field point to a decline in diversity of local varieties in many countries. Future impacts of climate change are expected to become more pronounced in many parts of the world, forcing farmers to change their practices and causing them to search for information about crops and varieties better adapted to new weather dynamics.