Participatory Variety Selection (PVS) and Communitybased Seed Production (CBSP): A Sustainable Approach for Wider Dissemination of Improved Maize Seed in Remote Areas

摘要

The non-availability of quality seed of farmers' preferred varieties is one of the major constraints in maize production, resulting in low adoption of improved varieties and low productivity. For wider dissemination of modern varieties, there is a need to strengthen the seed production and supply system by offering farmers opportunities to select varieties that fulfill their needs. With the objective of helping farmers raise their incomes, activities involving participatory variety selection (PVS) and community-based seed production (CBSP) were implemented to identify farmers' preferred varieties and enable them to be self-sufficient in quality seeds. These activities were carried out during summer of 2002～2004 in remote areas of six western hill districts of Nepal. Mother baby and farmers' field trials were carried out to identify farmers' preferred varieties. Different observations were recorded from mother trials. Household-level questionnaires and focus group discussions were used to collect farmers' preferences. Location- and gender-specific varietal preferences were recorded. Manakamana 3, Hill White, Hill Yellow, Population 44c 10 and ZM 621 are found to be the farmers' preferred varieties. A CBSP program of these varieties was launched to produce and disseminate seeds. Seed producers groups were formed and trained. Seed production was 42 tons from 28.2ha of land in 2003 and 28.8 tons from 14.3ha of land in 2004. Yield increments of 50%～100% over farmers' local varieties were recorded. After implementing the program, the economic status and food security situation of resource-poor and marginal farmers increased significantly, with increased period of food self- sufficiency and income from the same unit of land. The PVS also helped to get feedback about promising varieties and popularize them before release.