Market-based Strategy

4.1 Role of Organic Agriculture in Protecting Plant Genetic Resources while Providing Improved Income

As discussed above, among the different approaches to protect and maintain the remaining PGR, in situ on-farm conservation by smallholder farmers can be more effective and less costly compared to the option of preserving them in protective areas. To do so, beyond having international agreements and a regulatory framework, incentive systems must be put into place for researchers and farmers to collaborate with each other. While systems to provide incentives for researchers are largely available and is largely subject to the discretion of research budgets, the challenge is to create incentive systems for poor farmers who are the protectors of the remaining PGR to collaborate with researchers to continue to maintain the PGR in a more effective and systematic manner.

Under current circumstances, the remaining PGR are being protected in situ by smallholder farmers in less privileged agriculture areas. Because they are generally poor, the challenge is not only to provide incentives for them to continue to play a role of protector of the remaining PGR but also to provide them with sufficient income to pull themselves out of poverty. To date, the conventional development strategy is to introduce poor farmers to highyielding commercial varieties with a goal of improving their productivity and therefore income. However, this conventional strategy of development has had mixed results on poverty reduction but has definitely led a to rapid decline of PGR. An alternative strategy where the value of the PGR can take into consideration must be urgently identified.

Among the various commercial farming systems practiced by smallholder farmers, organic agriculture,⁴ in particular certified organic agriculture, stands out as one of the most promising farming systems. Organic agricultural systems are technologically appropriate while allowing market instruments to provide incentives and rewards for PGR conservation by farmers.

Unlike input-intensive farming systems, organic farms must rely on biological management methods to obtain optimal product quality, yields, and production costs. Synthetic inputs such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides are strictly excluded from organic farming systems. In addition, reliance on organic fertilizers and pesticides is not economically sustainable in the long term and such inputs are used primarily during the conversion to organic agriculture.

Since organic farmers tend to produce to serve niche markets where traditional varieties are often promoted as being more nutritious, organic farmers are likely to cultivate older, native varieties that have greater resistance to disease and pests and are better adapted to climatic stresses in the local ecosystems. These locally adapted, open-pollinated varieties are more appropriate for organic agriculture than hybrid varieties which require inputs, and are an important genetic resource for poor farmers in marginal areas. By utilizing traditional varieties, organic agriculture has significant potential to restore and preserve PGR (Sciallaba, Grandi, and Henatsch 2002).

Overall, organic farming has the technical capacity to maintain a high level of PGR. Organic farms grow a wide variety of crops, in contrast to the monocropping typically found on conventional farms. In many cases encountered during a series of field visits in Thailand, organic farmers responded to the call for increased biodiversity under organic certification and grew under-utilized species as rotation crops or intercropping species. They also grew indigenous varieties according to their culinary preference. These practices lead to increased soil fertility, reduced costs of pest and disease management and have a positive impact on crop biodiversity (Setboonsarng 2006). Thus organic agriculture not only reduces erosion of agro-diversity but also creates a healthier gene pool—the basis for future adaptation. Moreover, as certified organic farms are located far from areas where GE plants are grown, the risk of germplasm cross-contamination is minimized.

The market-based incentives are also in place as the global organic trade has increased rapidly, growing from a from US$11 billion in 1997 to over US$50 billion in 2007 and predicted to reach 61 billion in 2010 (International Federation for Organic Agriculture Movement 2008). The exponential growth rate of 18–23% annually in recent years is caused by increased awareness that organic products are better for health and the environment. The growing demand for organic products has increased the economic value of a number of traditional or underutilized crops, and has provided livelihoods to poor communities in marginal areas of developing countries. Evidence shows that private sector firms are investing in remote areas where chemical use has been limited and a transition period to obtain certified organic status is not required. Poor farmers with traditional knowledge of managing ecosystems without using chemicals have a competitive advantage in growing organic crops. With the organic farmers receiving premium price for their products, economic incentives are in place for them to adopt sustainable practices and maintain a high level of biodiversity on the farm as required by the certification system (Setboonsarng 2008).

The promotion of organic agriculture to maintain PGR can be done in two ways. One way is to promote the commercialization of traditional varieties by finding markets for crops. Increasing consumer demand for specialty products, motivated by health concerns and culinary tastes, has led to the restoration of varieties at risk of genetic erosion. The development of a market for specialty products has been successful in certain cases, such as the promotion of the nutritional value of gluten-free quinoa⁵ from Peru or the marketing of traditional potatoes in Peru by an NGO (Sciallaba, Grandi, and Henatsch 2002).

Since the majority of poor farmers have a taste preference toward local varieties, another way to use organic agriculture to maintain PGR is to introduce commercial organic production of new crops demanded by the market in part of the farmers' farm, while encouraging the farmers to maintain production of traditional crops for consumption on another part of the farm. In that way, farmers can earn income from commercial crops while preserving the traditional crops in situ.

Organic farmers could possibly be more willing to work closely with researchers to systematically document PGR than conventional. This is because organic farmers need to find new ways to manage their farms using modern organic practices to achieve higher levels of production while conserving the environment. If designed appropriately, the price premium and the added income from organic produce could become market-based incentives to involve poor farmers worldwide to participate in the preservation of PGR.

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