Maintaining, rediscovering and creating a cultivated biodiversity for Organic Farming

The term “participatory breeding” covers several aspects of the organisation of plant selection depending on the implication of the farmers and the private or academic research institutions. Thus, it could complement existing professional breeding activity with an accent on consideration of "genotype x environmental interaction" (considering socio-economic and cultural factors in the natural environment), or it could be a farmer's venture for which they seek help from the research institutions in achieving the aims determined by the farmers themselves. Moreover, the experiences can be differentiated according to their positioning between more or less dynamically maintaining plant heritage and the creating of new varieties or even novel scenarios of cultivated biodiversity.

PPB in France

PPB activity belongs to the dynamism of peasants aiming to redevelop local varieties, to maintain the plant heritage and to recover the seed autonomy that had been taken hostage by seed companies. Their objective is to obtain seed capable of growth and productivity with the natural resources of their environment.

There can be seen a rapid expansion of the movement, with new groups undertaking the adventure with species more or more diversified. Two elements illustrate the increasing interest in peasant varieties and PPB:

Nevertheless, not all groups are members of RSP and not all operators will solicit INRA collaboration. These are only two indicators of an increasing activity, but the main characteristic of this movement is its link to a ”peasant” agriculture using mainly the organic or biodynamic methods and that has deliberately placed itself outside the reach of all standardisation.

If, at the beginning, most of the initiatives are local or regional, soft wheat and vegetable species attract wider interest. The “participation” reveals the emergence of new forms of relationship between farmer and researcher: from the simple screening of varieties in experimental stations, in response to requests from producers, to the dynamic management of biodiversity by the farmers alone, this participation manifests itself in a wealth of differing forms. All the actions cannot be listed in this paper. What is known about them is mostly data on the species involved in collaborative projects with researchers or projects for which the actors are numerous enough to be organized collectively. The experiences described in the following text are chosen to illustrate the diversity of the “participation”.

From variety screening to Participatory Plant Breeding

The mission of ITAB (Institut Technique de l’Agriculture Biologique) has hitherto been concentrated on evaluation for conditions of Organic farming of the wheat or vegetable varieties offered by seed companies. These actions are performed by regional groups linked to ITAB in collaboration with the technical institutes but have not involved the research institutes.

The Languedoc-Roussillon is a pioneer region in its involvement of the public research etsablishment: as early as 2001, the INRA Breeding Station at Maugio undertook a common programme, named CEBIOCA, in the framework of the internal INRA call for proposals for research actions for Organic Farming, and to survey the situation of organic cereals in the Camargue (Mouret et al., 2005). A survey revealed that semolina and pasta makers were unhappy with the quality of organic durum wheat from the Camargue (poor protein content, vitreousness, small size of the grain or yellow colour unsuitable for industrial use), since French durum wheat varieties have all been selected in conventional agriculture conditions where mineral nitrogen and phosphorus were not a limiting factor. Moreover, organic farmers want long straw (to enrich the soil or to provide litter for animals) and not the dwarf or half-dwarf varieties in the official Catalogue. The INRA Station at Mauguio, interested in the diverse origins of the cultivated varieties, had proceeded to several crosses between durum wheat and primitive or allied species, creating populations with a broad genetic basis. These populations and numerous lines had been proposed to the farmers of the Camargue, then to those of the Lauragais: two lines were chosen in a process of participatory evaluation and the question is now how to organise their commercial development (Chiffoleau and Desclaux, 2006). Moreover, the durum wheat producers of the Lauragais entered actively into a process of participatory plant breeding for Organic Agriculture during a second INRA project concerning “The impact, the acceptability and the management of varietal innovation”, in collaboration with a pluridisciplinary team of researchers (geneticist, agronomist, sociologist, economist, …) and in interaction with others partners (BioCIVAM-11, FNAB, RSP …).

In Brittany, participatory plant breeding for cabbage and cauliflower was born at the same time as for durum wheat, within the framework of the same internal call for proposals (by CIAB, the Internal Committee for Organic Farming) of INRA, in 2000. It was performed at the PAIS (Plateforme Agro-biologique d’Inter-Bio-Bretagne à Suscinio), an experimental station of the organic agriculture professional bodies in Brittany. At the beginning, the aim was to evaluate the genetic resources and to determine together the varietal type suitable for organic agriculture, knowing that breeding for the purposes of conventional agriculture uses biotechnologies which do not respect the principles of organic agriculture [see IFOAM draft Plant Breeding Standards, 2005]2. The participation of the farmers began with the decision to produce seed from the plants observed in the PAIS trials. Nevertheless, the PAIS remains a determining factor in the organisation of trials, in the distribution of seed and intraining for the maintenance of the seed plants. The breeding methods were adapted to the farmers' aims and defined jointly with scientific support from INRA.

From the conservation of heritage to the dynamic management of genetic resources

The producers of sauerkraut in Alsace, centred on the headquarters of the Biodynamic movement in Colmar, organised themselves to claim back and evaluate their heritage of sauerkraut cabbage varieties, preserved in the freezers of the INRA Station of Rennes for more than 20 years.

In the North of France, the leadership is ensured by the “Centre de Ressources génétiques” of Nord - Pas de Calais” whose first motivation was to preserve the vegetable heritage of the area (carrot of Tilques, globe artichoke of ‘Gros Vert de Laon’…). An action on summer cauliflower has begun in 2006, with the same INRA Station of Rennes that has conserved the traditional varieties of the farmers around Saint Omer. These same cauliflower populations have also been evaluated in the Pays de Loire. The aim is to adapt these summer types and to create new types for adaptation to quite different “terroir”.

About ten organic farmers linked to the RSP and the CIVAM Bio of the Languedoc, shared their experience of vegetable seed production, to evaluate private collections and that of INRA Avignon and to initiate a breeding programme for tomatoes in organic agriculture. In the launching of this action, a determining factor was the experience of an organic farmer in the département of Herault cultivating in a dry area more than a hundred ancient varieties. Public research bodies have been implicated more discretely, supporting the work of collection & evaluation. The programme is entirely directed by the farmers.

Several groups of farmers, small scale plant breeders or seed producers, in collaboration with or under contract to farmers, professional or amateur associations, are producing organic seed and seedlings, and they are maintaining varieties of several vegetable and fruit species. Some “Natural parks” accompany these actions. This tremendous work, from heritage conservation to the dynamic management of genetic resources, is guided by criteria of taste and nutritional qualities and by the adaptation to organic and biodynamic agriculture. This important mission, situated between genetic resource management and plant breeding, is often ignored by the public research establishment which sees plant breeding as a professional activity based on genome science and which manages genetic resources as a gene pool, maintained in a fossilized state, collected just before they disappeared and subsequently in a state of non evolution.

The revival of the ancient bread wheat by dynamic on-farm management of cultivated biodiversity

Their practice of bread-making, the contacts with customers, lead farmer-bakers to make bread from ancient varieties supposed to have no bread making quality according to the current criteria used for the evaluation and registration of novel wheat varieties. Their researches are guided as much by agronomic adaptation to organic farming as by nutritional and gustative improvement in traditional bread-making. Several of them, mainly the farmers involved in the CETAB and Triptolème associations, maintain, seek an evolution of, select and evaluate several wheat populations from cultivation to the finished bread, populations obtained from farmer exchanges or collected from the genetic resources establishments. Others focus their action on local varieties (small spelt in the framework of an IGP3, “le blé meunier” miller's wheat from Apt…) or ancient varieties such as “Touzelle”. There is an episodic collaboration with the public research establishment, on genetic resources or nutritional quality. There has been a first project, financed by the BRG4, about the evaluation of the evolutionary capabilities of population varieties in farm conditions, conducted by a laboratory specialized in the dynamic management of genetic resources (INRA's Moulon Station, Gif sur Yvette, Goldringer et al., 2006).

The absence of the research establishment in the debate about “F1 hybrid or population varieties”

In Aquitaine, the breeding programme on maize populations, begun in 2001 on the initiative of "Bio d’Aquitaine"5, was organized by ADAP (Association de Développement en Agrobiologie), which became "AgroBio Périgord". A collective research platform coordinates the evaluation trials of maize, sunflower and soya populations from very diverse origins. For maize, in the same programme and in parallel, an independent private breeder is engaged in a project for the creation of varieties of composite populations for organic agriculture. The participation of farmers is increasing with an extension of the evaluation trials over several regions (Poitou-Charentes, Pays de Loire, Bretagne, Rhône-Alpes…) for the on-farm breeding of population varieties for organic agriculture. The public research establishment was absent until 2004 when it was invited to the steering committee by the public financial providers, but nevertheless, its action remains limited.

The exploration of a non conventional breeding method in viticulture

The research on vines comes up against the sanitary regulation which prevents all selection, apart from vegetative cloning and vine stock authorised by each county ("department"). Numerous experiments are conducted by individual wine growers practicing mass selection in their “terroir”, propagation and on-farm grafts, plantation without stock, bud cuttings. Their results are interesting from sanitary as from qualitative points of view. These experiments have been partly inventoried by the association “Nature et Progrès”. Some associations of amateurs conserve local hybrid varieties without grafting, sometimes linked with German or Swiss breeders. These researches remain marginal and dissident. Therefore, their results cannot be spread, valorised and accompanied by the official public research establishment, because they lack a legislative framework. The official research establishment is not neutral in maintaining this regulatory context because of its restricted sanitary conception of plant disease, often reduced to the interaction between plant and pathogen.

From PPB to on-farm breeding and peasant research

It has been recognised that there are several types of PPB, according to the level of implication of the farmers6. In France, where PPB for organic agriculture and for peasant farmers happens, most of the experiments are conceived by the farmers themselves, and plant breeding is often the work of amateurs, of men with a passion for their plants. The durum wheat experiment is an original situation where researchers and farmers together manage the breeding programme. The farmers came to the INRA researchers to obtain genetic resources, and then they asked for a specific breeding programme for organic agriculture. For about 15 species, the concerned farmer groups receive help from the Rennes INRA unit of “Science for action and development”, for searches of genetic resources and their compatibility with Organic Farming and for providing biological and agronomical knowledge about the organization of initial evaluation trials. Moreover, this activity facilitates the linking of the different groups.

Participatory research activities have shown the maturity of French farmers in organising themselves for the research and for the sharing of their knowledge, in turning to the Southern countries for help. The farmers in southern countries have often kept their traditional knowledge of seed management. This knowledge often derives from holistic, analogical and intuitive investigation methods and has found only feeble recognition from public research institutes.

In this context, for the official scientific organisations, will PPB become an object of research or a subject of research? The conceptual gap between peasant research, more holistic and intuitive, and the analytical and experimental research, will it be crippling for any real collaboration or will it be the fermenting agent, as in the South, for novel fields of scientific investigation?

Véronique Chable, INRA Rennes - SAD Paysage – 65, rue de Saint Brieuc - 35042 Rennes Cedex, chable@rennes.inra.fr, 33 (0) 2 23 48 51 38 ou 33 (0) 2 23 48 70 49

Guy Kastler, Réseau Semences Paysannes – Cazalens - 81600 Brens, contact@semencespaysannes.org, www-semencespaysannes.org, 33 (0) 5 63 41 72 86

Contacts:

AgroBio Périgord : 4/6 place Francheville, 24 016 Périgueux

Tel: 33 (0) 5 53 35 88 18 – Courriel: adap.boi@wanadoo.fr

BioCIVAM 11 : Z.A. de Sautes à Trèbe, 11 000 Carcassonne

Tel: 33 (0) 4.68.11.79.24 / 33 (0) 4.68.78.75.37 – Courriel: biocivam.11@wanadoo.fr

Bio de Provence (blé Meunier d’Apt et petit Epeautre) : Maison de la Bio, Agroparc - BP 1221 - 84 911 Avignon cédex 09, Tél: 33 (0) 4 90 84 03 34 – Courriel: contact@bio-provence.org

Centre Régional de Ressources Génétiques / Espaces naturels régionaux Nord Pas de Calais

Chemin de la ferme Lenglet - 59 650 Villeneuve D'Ascq – Te l: 33 (0)3 20 67 03 51 –

Courriel: m-p.fauquembergue@enr-lille.com

CETAB : Le Roc, 47 130 Port Sainte Marie

Tel: 33 (0)5 53 88 11 84 – Courriel: jean-francois.berthellot@wanadoo.fr

Maison de l'Agriculture Bio-Dynamique - 5, place de la Gare - 68000 COLMAR France - Tél.: 33 (0)3.89.24.36.41 - Courriel: info@bio-dynamie.org

Nature & Progrès : 68 Bb Gambetta, 30 700 Uzès, Tel:33 (0)4 66 03 23 40 - http://www.natureetprogres.org

PAIS : Plateforme Agrobiologique d’Inter Bio Bretagne à Suscinio – Lycée Agricole de Suscinio – 29600 Morlaix – Tel : 33 (0)2 98 72 03 22. – Courriel: mathieu.conseil@educagri.fr

Triptolène : Place de l'église, 35 330 Bovel

Tel: 33 (0)02.99.92.09.32 – Courriel: tripto@laposte.net

Syndicat de Promotion Touzelle : 2025, Mas de Mayan - 30 900 Nîmes

Tel: 33 (0)4.66.38.23.28 – Courriel: agripate@wanadoo.fr

INRA - UMR Diversité et Génome des Plantes Cultivées
Domaine de Melgueil - 34130 MAUGUIO - FRANCE
tel: (33) 4 67 29 06 09 – Fax: (33) 4 67 29 39 90

Courriel: Dominique.Desclaux@ensam.inra.fr

UMR de Génétique Végétale - INRA UPS INA-PG CNRS
Ferme du Moulon - 91190 Gif sur Yvette - France
Tel: +33 1 69 33 23 70 - Fax: +33 1 69 33 23 40

Courriel: isa@moulon.inra.fr

References:

Goldringer I, Prouin C, Rousset M, Galic N & I Bonnin (2006) Rapid differentiation of experimental populations of wheat for heading-time in response to local climatic conditions. Annals of Botany (accepté)

Chable V (2005) Conserving and Developing Crop Biodiversity – Biodiversity and Local Ecological Knowledge in France, Bérard L, Cegarra M, Djama M, Louafi. S, Marchenay P, Roussel B, Verdeaux F, eds, édition Cemagref, Cirad, Ifremer, Inr ; Iddri, IFB, 276 pages

Mouret JC, Dreyfus F, Desclaux D, Marnotte P, Mesleard F, Barbier JM (2005) La construction d’une démarche interdisciplinaire à partir de l’émergence de la céréaliculture biologique en Camargue : le projet CEBIOCA. Actes du séminaire sur les recherches en AB INRA-ACTA, Draveil 20-21 novembre 2003. (2ième partie) : 31-41.

Chiffoleau, Y., Desclaux, D. (2006) Participatory plant breeding: the best way to breed for sustainable agriculture? In International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability- Special Issue: "New frontiers in participatory research and learning approaches for agriculture" (in press)