30 Questions
What is a key challenge to farmers' seed systems' resilience?
Limitations to seed availability due to market changes
Why should a simplistic and fragmented approach of prescribing seeds replacement be cautioned?
It may ignore the changing practices and preferences of farmers
What is crucial to the continuing innovation and functioning of farmers' seed supply despite serious challenges?
Support for both farmers and their systems to innovate and adapt
Why might interventions that restrict farmers to only traditional crops and varieties be problematic?
They may ignore farmer's shifting practices and preferences
What restricts the time for recovery in farmers' seed systems after recurring shocks?
Multiple changes and recurring shocks (disasters and general anti-cyclic nature)
What is essential to making farmers' seed systems more resilient according to the text?
Various activities that farmers can perform themselves and cooperation with formal sectors
What can help farmers make informed seed choices based on their unique criteria?
Participatory diagnostics and decision-making tools
What is a key challenge faced by participatory plant breeding initiatives?
Upscaling and outscaling
What is crucial for improving farmers' capacities for seed selection and storage?
Proper storage facilities
What is effective for diagnosis, surveillance, and disease management in smallholder farmer areas?
Plant clinics operated by extension agents with laboratory back-up
What is essential for facilitating multi-stakeholder collaboration and capacity building for farmers?
Engaging farmers in experiential learning
What can improve seed resilience and provide essential seed services, with proper governance and commitment?
Community seed banks
What is the main challenge for seed production, according to the text?
High costs associated with production
How can developing locally oriented seed enterprises help reduce costs?
By decreasing overhead costs
What role do governments play in seed production, according to the text?
Particularly in producing early generation seed
How can plant breeder's rights (PBR) help public breeders?
By securing interest from seed producers
What is necessary for long-term investment in breeding?
Long-term commitment from public sector breeders
What can international cooperation help avoid in seed production policies?
Duplication of efforts
What is the main factor necessary for international trade of agricultural products and variety release?
Effective phytosanitary control authorities
What is an advanced form of accreditation that provides lighter supervision and promotes seed quality?
Quality Declared Seed (QDS) concept
Which systems have dependencies on the same three elements for resilience: diversity of plant genetic resources, functioning institutions, and innovation?
Both formal and farmers' seed systems
What can create intermediate forms, such as farmer groups producing good-quality seed in formal settings?
Interventions that blur the distinction between formal and informal seed systems
Which type of seed systems may be limited in scope but can be quicker in their response to changes?
Formal commercial seed systems
What is essential for obtaining new knowledge and staying up-to-date in the breeding process?
Public-private collaboration with universities
What is the main recommendation for ensuring the resilience of seed systems and global food systems?
Facilitating continuous access to plant genetic resources and ensuring both systems function and complement each other
Why is the debate on whether formal or farmers’ seed systems are best considered unproductive?
Because no country or seed system is fully self-reliant on plant genetic resources, and global interdependence is acknowledged
What is emphasized as the basis for productive decision making on how to support policy objectives related to good seeds?
The careful analysis of opportunities and limitations of each seed system
Why is it concluded that neither farmers’ nor formal seed systems have all the answers to the challenges ahead?
Because no country or seed system is fully self-reliant on plant genetic resources, and global interdependence is acknowledged
What is highlighted as a key aspect for making seed systems more resilient?
Facilitating continuous access to plant genetic resources and ensuring both systems function and complement each other
Why does the text emphasize the need for dynamic interventions to be context specific?
Because nothing in the world is static, and interventions need to be adaptable to changing contexts
Study Notes
- Breeding is an interdisciplinary process that requires collaboration between breeders, plant pathologists, agronomists, and molecular biologists.
- Public-private and public-public collaboration with universities and international research institutes is essential for obtaining new knowledge and staying up-to-date.
- Effective phytosanitary control authorities are necessary for international trade of agricultural products and for variety release and seed quality control.
- The cost of full seed certification and testing can be high, leading to a need for accreditation and quality management systems.
- The Quality Declared Seed (QDS) concept is an advanced form of accreditation that provides lighter supervision and promotes seed quality.
- Farmers use a variety of seed systems for different crops, formal and informal, which are dependent on the same three elements for resilience: diversity of plant genetic resources, functioning institutions, and innovation.
- Formal commercial seed systems can be quicker in their response to changes but may be limited in scope, while farmers' seed systems have existed since ancient times and have been resilient but face vulnerabilities.
- Creating a diversified, competitive seed sector and stimulating seed entrepreneurship can increase the resilience of formal seed systems.
- Interventions that blur the distinction between formal and informal seed systems can create intermediate forms, such as farmer groups producing good-quality seed in formal settings.
- National seed policies often focus only on formal seed systems, and debates at the international level may give the impression that one system is superior to the other, when in fact both formal and farmers' seed systems have dependencies on the same three elements.
Test your knowledge on seed-transmitted diseases and formal seed systems. Explore the challenges and options for increasing the resilience of formal seed systems. Assess your understanding of the economic sustainability of seed production.
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