Genetic Resource Policies What is Diversity Worth to Farmers ?

IInstitutional analysis can be used to understand the value placed on crop diversity by farmers as a social process, and to uncover the market-related constraints and incentives that influence farmer management of genetic resources. This is particularly important for capturing the dynamics of crop populations and the collective impact of individual decisions regarding crop diversity. In the applied economics literature, the notion of a seed system has often been limited to the “formal” seed industry, which uses public or private funding to develop, multiply, and distribute finished varieties as certified seed. Informal seed systems, documented mostly by anthropologists or sociologists, are often treated as marginal to the process of economic development. Given the range of materials planted by farmers in centers of crop diversity and the concern about introducing new varieties, studying only one segment of the seed system in isolation of the other could lead to biased conclusions. Several of these case studies seek to advance the understanding of seed system interactions with crop biodiversity levels, including both formal and informal systems. They define seed systems to include all the channels through which farmers acquire genetic materials and information about those materials, including farmers’ organizations, weekly markets, and social networks. Analyses are not limited to certified seed of modern varieties, but encompass all types of material planted locally by farmers.