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Abstract: Farming communities have much to say when it comes to plant genetic resource conservation. Ensuring the availability of quality seeds and storing diverse materials for future use are forms of conservation. With the continued utilization of these resources, farmers are actually conserving valuable resources for future generations. Knowingly or unknowing, farmers have been practicing conservation for millennia. Formalization and centralization of agricultural research and development, however, has resulted in a shift in the management of these resources. The accelerated erosion of plant genetic resources as a result of the Green Revolution foiled farmers' efforts to conserve and utilize their own varieties. The self-reliant and innovative farmers became heavily dependent on external inputs and lost control over the whole agricultural system.

There is a great opportunity, however, to salvage and effectively utilize and conserve these resources with farming communities. This paper presents the efforts of the Community-Based Native Seeds Research Center (CONSERVE) in promoting community-based conservation per se, and in affecting change and development in marginalized farming communities, and vice-versa.

Recognizing that seed conservation is not the end in itself, this effort is linked and integrated with other project components. These components and their integration with the whole concept of conservation, in response to the need for a more sustainable agriculture, will be discussed in detail. The strengths, limitations, as well as how CONSERVE's program has evolved in response to the many challenges will be presented.

Introduction

The situation is further aggravated by the rapid and massive provision of seed and credit in the government's agricultural programs, which are biased against traditional varieties. This is further compounded by rapid changes in the environment — may they be man-inflicted or natural. These are likely to have greater impact on the loss of genetic diversity than the farmer- driven changes that are regularly occurring in farmers' fields.

A large portion of varietal diversity in plants can be attributed to the eco-geographic features of the habitats and agricultural practices associated with them. Mindanao's terrain varies from flat fertile plains to an irregular landscape of wide valleys, scattered hills and interminable mountain ranges. The spatial distribution of rainfall also varies to a great extent. These differences, as well as the very diverse peoples and cultures, may have resulted in very diverse rice genetic resources. Exactly how diverse these materials are would be difficult to determine.

Collection expeditions for this region, however, have been limited by its long history of civil unrest. Most of the collections made by formal institutions were restricted to accessible areas. The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), for example, only holds 137 rice accessions for the entire area of Mindanao. Mindanao is composed of 18 provinces. Failure to conserve these genetic resources may eventually result in the loss of a substantial reserve of genetic variation necessary for crop improvement.

The growing threat to genetic erosion and the continued disappearance of local varieties in farmers' fields led to the establishment of the Community-Based Native Research Center or CONSERVE. Its main thrust is to collect, conserve and enhance plant genetic resources (PGRs) through a participatory approach whereby farmers take the central role in the whole process. Even more importantly, the project looks into the links and integration among farming systems, political and economic conditions, environmental situations and the efforts towards just and sustainable development. It looks at the conservation of the seeds not as the goal in itself, but realizes that the conservation of the seed is crucial to development efforts in marginalized farming communities. With this, a community-based seed program, anchored on sustainable agriculture, was started in 1992.

Linking the seeds and the farmers

Out of 18 mainland Mindanao provinces, only one province, North Cotabato, was surveyed relatively well for its remaining indigenous rice and corn varieties. One village each in the adjoining provinces was also visited and surveyed. Collection expeditions in these areas yielded 300 traditional rice varieties and 14 corn varieties (Table 1).

Table 1: CONSERVE collection
Type	Number of villages	Number of entries		TOTAL
		Lowland	Upland
A. RICE 1. CONSERVE collections   Agusan Sur   Bukidnon   Cotabato   Davao Sur   Maguindanao   North Davao   Sarangani   Sultan Kudarat Rice subtotal 2. Donated accessions RICE TOTAL	1 1 12 1 3 1 1 1 21	11 54* 1 7 2 1 76 37 113	15 143 38 20 8 224 11 235	11 15 197 1 45 2 20 9 300 48 348
B. CORN	-	14	-	14
C. OTHER COLLECTIONS	-	40	13	53
TOTAL ACCESSIONS	21	167	248	415
* includes 2 wild rice collections

Upland varieties constituted 74.9% of all the rice collections. Most of these varieties were obtained from indigenous farming communities. The small number of lowland collections can be partly attributed to the higher adoption rate of modern varieties, since the main focus of rice research and development has been on irrigated areas.

Having been able to collect an enormous amount of rice diversity in the region, an in situ approach to plant genetic resources conservation was started in 1993, initially with 45 farmer curators. Identification of farmer curators was one of the crucial activities when the project was initiated. This was facilitated by various church-based organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and cooperatives existing in the area, which up to now remain supportive of the project. A series of meetings and focused group discussions with various farming communities and organized farmer groups were conducted to create an awareness of the importance and urgency of plant genetic resource conservation. To-date, there are 106 farmer curators involved, distributed in 23 baranggays in Arakan Complex (see map, Figure 1).

Figure 1a: Map of Mindanao, Philippines showing the location of on-farm conservation and germplasm source.

Figure 1b: Seed distribution sites in Arakan Valley complex for on-farm conservation

Figure 2 shows CONSERVE's strategy for on-farm PGR conservation and utilization. It is emphasized that the task of the curators is not merely to grow the limited samples of traditional varieties in the fields. There exists a 'dynamic' relationship and flow of materials between CONSERVE and the farmer curators and among the farmer curators themselves. This strategy can ensure the security of PGRs, will allow a continuous supply of valuable/adapted seeds to farmers and will also build a repository of plant genetic resources for future crop improvement.

Figure 2: Strategy for on-farm plant genetic resources conservation of CONSERVE

Each farmer is given a sample of ten accessions of different indigenous rice varieties. These accessions are then planted in their fields for conservation purposes and for adaptability tests. At the start, farmers were only given 100 g of seed of each of the varieties. This helped strengthen farmers' appreciation of the value of these resources. Furthermore, this process also served as a means of testing the adaptability of the materials under farmers' conditions and across different environments.

Since the program was launched, a total of 169 indigenous varieties have been distributed to various farmer curators for on-farm conservation. Adaptability of the varieties varies from one farm to another depending on the prevailing agroecological conditions in the area. Varieties which farmers maintain are conserved either as planted or live collections or stored for future use. Of the presently distributed varieties, 8.28% and 42.01% are stored and planted, respectively, while 15.98% are conserved as both. Some exceptional and good performing varieties are being propagated and redistributed to other farmers. So far, six identified traditional varieties have gained acceptance from farmers and are currently being utilized for large-scale production (Figure 3). Some varieties however did not thrive in some of the distribution areas. Others were lost due to some environmental factors not within farmers' control. Economic and social limitations also prompted farmers to discard some varieties. Materials which farmers discarded willingly or unwillingly accounted for 33.73% of the total plant distribution. In such cases, CONSERVE then has a role in ensuring that varieties lost and discarded by farmers are redistributed to other farmers in other areas and are maintained as in the back-up collection.

Figure 3: Comparison of the number of lowland varieties utilized by farmers in Arakan Valley Complex

Maintenance of PGR on-farm remains to be the organization's main approach towards conservation. As a support to the on-farm conservation carried-on by farmers, CONSERVE is currently maintaining a back-up base and active collection in its center farm (Table 2).

Table 2: Comparison of CONSERVE's base and active collections
	Base	Active
Purpose	back-up (discards, depository of those not yet distributed)	seed distribution for farmers, seed material for on-farm and center-based experimentation
System/Conditions	storage in glass jars, room temp., w/ silica gel, etc.	stored in bags and cans
Amount	4000-12,000 seeds	1 kg at the minimum
Frequency of regeneration	regenerate if viability is below 85%	would vary depending on the demand of the center and farmers

This ex situ approach complements the on-farm conservation efforts and availability of materials, especially to farmers.

Another activity conducted in the center base is the systematic characterization and documentation of the collected materials. All the rice collections have already been characterized for selected morpho-agronomic characteristics in the central station. After considering the preliminary evaluations of farmers and the central station, some accessions can be released as potential cultivars for commercial production. Other morpho-agronomic characteristics are also noted which can be of potential use for future crop improvement (Table 3).

Table 3: Reason for continued utilization of local varieties
Morpho-agronomic characters	Socio-cultural functions
Good tillering capacity Aromatic Good eating quality High yielding Early maturing Resistance to pests and diseases Sticky Hard and heavy grains Good and bigger grains Unique taste and color Drought tolerance Can stay longer in storage	Tribal celebrations Cultural gatherings To remember forefathers and ancestors Survival crop For infants and sickly No need for chemical fertilizers and pesticides

Sustaining conservation and agricultural development

Training on crop improvement, farming systems development and soil fertility management is being conducted on a regular basis to assist those farmers who are adopting local varieties and are gradually steering away from purchased inputs. At present, a season-long farmers' field school on ecological pest management, attended by 126 farmers is being conducted in six sites. This is made possible with the help and active participation of 16 local farmer trainers, whom themselves have attended the orientations and training conducted by CONSERVE and have completed a season-long training course. Most of these trainers are also actively engaged in PGR conservation as farmer curators.

Project impact

Figure 4: Degree of rice varietal utilization under lowland conditions.

Further impact can be seen in terms of chemical use, as measured by hectarage. Of the total land area of the 50 farmer project cooperators, 40% is totally chemical-free (apart from the fertilizer-free and pesticide-free areas) (Figure 5). In terms of savings from the cost of fertilizers and pesticides, this would amount to 50,000 pesos per cropping season or 1,250 pesos per hectare on the average (Figure 6). This would mean a 50% reduction in the dependency on purchased chemical inputs, apart from the environmental and health benefits gained.

Figure 5: Impact on chemical use in terms of rice area under lowland conditions

Figure 6: Impact of CONSERVE chemical use in terms of cost of inputs under lowland rice conditions.

This recent survey was conducted among 50 farmer households who were close project cooperators of CONSERVE. However, as of April 1995, around 250 farmers in the town of Pres. Roxas have adopted an ecological pest management (EPM) technology. The town has a total of 1,800 hectares of lowland rice farm and around the same number of farmer households.

Although the survey only covered a limited number of farmers and area, it is expected that the number of farmers utilizing traditional varieties will increase. Looking at the farm household level, an increase in the total real farm income was noted. By diversifying his farm, one of the farmer cooperators in Pres. Roxas earned an extra 7,000 pesos this season. Instead of planting a single variety, he planted his own Bordagol selection as his main variety and another photoperiodic type as a sustainer crop. He had been practicing organic farming for four seasons.

Issues confronting current efforts in community-based PGR management

Moreover, the government's program for 'industrialization' as envisioned in Philippines 2000, which promotes high value crops meant for export, will likewise hasten the displacement of farmers' varieties.

Another issue confronting farmers concerns marketing. The strong, dominant market forces promote uniformity of agricultural products. The farmers cooperative in the town, for example, operates a 'big' rice mill to service its more than 1,500 farmer members. Big mills are designed for uniform varieties and cannot handle the different varieties that many farmers now produce. The diversity of rice harvests now also causes additional work in drying, pricing, bagging, labelling, etc.

In fact, farmers are moving towards an alternative trading that would put value on their struggle for the conservation and development of PGR diversity. In fact, it will not be a value that is anchored primarily on the 'price' but rather on the proper recognition of their products.

The problem related to the tenurial status of farmers is considered crucial in community PGR system and sustainable agriculture efforts as a whole. Thirty percent of farmers in the area are tenants. The innovations of these farmers and the use of the indigenous varieties in larger areas therefore, are being hampered by the landowners' decisions.

Conclusions

For more than a decade during the implementation of agricultural modernization and centralized forms of research, the whole agricultural system has changed. Hence, conservation and use of genetic diversity, in particular, and biodiversity, in general, should be properly linked with the agricultural transformation process.

The role of the formal systems and NGOs, however, can not be disregarded. These institutions can serve as a better support system in the process undertaken by farmers. NGOs like CONSERVE have proven the effectiveness of this approach — returning back the diversity to the hands of farmers and together building their capabilities as the main actors for sustainable agricultural development. A close partnership with farmers is found to be very essential to the whole process.

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