On-farm and in-garden seed conservation

Organiser(s):  Peter Zipser,  Arche Noah, Austria and  Bernd Horneburg,  Dreschflegel, Germany

Speakers:
Vandana Shiva,  Navdanya, India
Bela Bartha, Switzerland;  Pro Specie Rara, 
Vanaja Ramprasad,  Green Conserve, India
Donna Takitimu,  Koanga Institute, New Zealand
Lamine Biaye,  ASPSP, Senegal
Debal Deb,  Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies
Bernd Horneburg,  University of Goettingen, Dreschflegel, Kultursaat, Germany,  
Peter Zipser, Arche Noah, Austria

Goals
By presenting a few "best-practice"-examples from countries of the southern and the northern hemisphere and by taking a look on the underlying concepts we will try to work out the most important factors for success as well as the main obstacles, when carrying out on farm-conservation of plant genetic resources (PGR). We want to deal with the themes listed below.
We will not be able to stay together as a group for many hours. Thus, the main task of our workshop will be to create contacts for the future. Getting to know each others work and a personal contact can foster exchange and co-operation despite the vast distances that separate most of us.
In a summary of the workshop, we hope to present some models for the successful implementation of on-farm and in-garden conservation. We want to define milestones for future work towards our visions.
Please send us your comment to the workshop!

Issues:
1) Definition and concepts for on-farm seed conservation
Where are the differences and where are the overlappings of on-farm /in garden-conservation in the countries of the South and of the North?
Different approaches when growing PGR for selfsupply or for the market?
Differences between on-farm and in-garden conservation?
Criteria for the re-introduction of PGR in agricultural systems.
Who should co-ordinate on-farm conservation activities?
On-farm management and monitoring-systems for crop conservation.
Concepts for crop conservation vs. concepts for plant improvement.
Different approaches of the re-introduction of PGR (scientific models vs. NGO- and farm-orientated models).

2) Education
How to safeguard and how to improve the traditional knowledge for peasant plant-breeding.
How to develop and organize training-courses for crop conservation and plant-improvement.
How to involve professional plantbreeding-sciences into on-farm conservation and peasant plant breading ("participatory plant breeding")

3) The use of plant genetic resources as cash crop and for self supply
Current social trends for the successful marketing of PGR. Evaluation of their commercial chances.
Remunerations for on-farm conservation of PGR (arguments, practical examples).
Successful marketing strategies for seeds and products of PGR.
Obstacles.

4) Current legal obstacles and necessary frameworks for implementing on-farm conservation successfully
This topic will be discussed on Thursday in the wokshop " Community commons, private control and public domain "


Presentations:
We are hoping for presentations to the following topics:
1) Best-practice-examples (6 x 5 minutes)
2) Education: Seminars for crop conservation and plant-improvement (2 x5 minutes)
3) PGR and new market- and consumer-trends
4) Slow Food`s Arc of Taste, a trend-setting model for on farm-conservation?

Procedure:
After the presentations we form working groups around all the themes which turn out to be most important. We will start to prepare working groups well before the workshop actually begins. Please email your comments and suggestions as soon as possible! Within the working groups will be opportunities to get to know each other and share our experiences.
First the participants of each group head for a vision, how a best-case scenario of their group-targets could look like.
In a second step, the participants of each working group debate the strengthening factors and possible obstacles and difficulties on the way to implement their vision.
In a next step, the results of each working group can be presented and discussed. Finally the results can be converged, as far as possible, or listed side by side.
Can we define milestones to follow up in meetings during the next years?

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Background Papers and further reading