A group of small-scale farmers from 8 districts targeted under the Zimbabwe Seed Sovereignty Programme (ZSSP) participated in a learning and exchange visit on Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB) which was held in Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe located approximately 168 kilometres from Harare in Mashonaland East Province, Zimbabwe.
Docusi Mabanja (49) is a small-scale farmer from Jinga village located in Chimanimani district. She is working with ZSSP partner, Participatory Organic Research Extension and Training (PORET). Docusi says the exchange and learning visit was an eye opener because she saw how farmers can enhance the quality of farm saved seeds that they grow in collaboration with researchers, scientists and other stakeholders.
“I did not have enough knowledge on seed multiplication, cleaning, and variety selection. I used to mix seed with grain, and this affected my yield. The knowledge that I acquired will enable me to be meticulous in the work that I do to protect our indigenous seeds,” she says.
Douglas Mapawu (36) is a small-scale farmer from Chikukwa community located in Chimanimani district. He works with Chikukwa Ecological Land Use Community Trust (CELUCT), one of the ZSSP partners working to strengthen farmer managed seed systems. Douglas says PELUM Zimbabwe should facilitate more community-to-community learning and exchange visits to enable farmers across the country to learn from each other.
“Farmers need to continue to learn from each other. It is our duty to feed our communities. Exchange and learning visits like these help us to learn how to grow quality indigenous seed,” says Douglas.
Gilbert Madzinga (52) is a small-scale farmer from Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe district, using Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB) techniques. He works with Community Technology Development Organisation (CTDO), a technical partner under the ZSSP. Gilbert says Participatory Plant Breeding is not a quick fix but it produces lasting results.
“Participatory Plant Breeding requires a lot of patience, discipline, and diligence but it leads to food security and resilience. We have successfully selected, enhanced and multiplied seeds in our community,” he says.
Manata Jeko (47), the Project Officer working with CTDO says Participatory Plant Breeding has several approaches but the most popular is Participatory Variety Selection and Participatory Variety Enhancement.
“Participatory Variety Enhancement entails enhancing a particular variety of seed. For example, if farmers are interested in removing certain unwanted characteristics from a traditional crop variety, they can ‘clean’ the seed using Participatory Variety Enhancement to attain the desired characteristics,” says Manata, adding that during Participatory Variety Selection, farmers test stable and advanced seeds provided by breeding institutions such as ICRISAT and CIMMYT.
“The farmers conduct tests against one or two most popular or best-performing varieties currently cultivated in their community. These are known as control or check varieties. This is to compare the new varieties and evaluate them against the standard of the popular varieties,” explains Manata.