Seeing seed: Farmers’ perspectives
Farmers trust each other when they save and trade traditional seed in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, Mexico. Gaining their trust may help CIMMYT and its partners in Mexico improve farmers' livelihoods.

“If there is no maize, what do we eat! It is the same as if there was no water—without water, what would we drink?” asks Doña María of Santa Ana Zegache in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca in southeastern Mexico.

For farmers like María, maize is the staple and most important foodstuff, and many feel an affection for their maize as their sustainer through the years. Saving seed and caring for your maize is part of what it means to be a good farmer and to be held in esteem by the community, and provides a link with previous generations.

The informal seed systems that ensure seed availability are vital to farmers’ livelihoods and food security and to the viability of smallholder agriculture. The region is also a center of genetic diversity for maize, and seed practices play a major role in shaping and maintaining this diversity—which in turn affects the germplasm supply for future crop breeding.

“If we seek to strengthen smallholder seed supply or the conservation of crop genetic diversity at the local level, we need to understand how farmers’ seed systems function,” says Lone Badstue, a rural development sociologist who recently concluded her doctoral thesis work at CIMMYT.¹ “For agricultural research and interventions to make sense and be useful and accessible to individual small-scale farm households, they must be grounded in an understanding of real-life situations at the local level, and people’s ways of negotiating these.”

There has been little detailed study of how seed systems work at this level. However, Badstue has generated just such in-depth insight in her work with traditional maize farmers in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca. There are few formal seed suppliers in the region, and almost all farmers grow indigenous maize landraces. In addition to saving seed from year to year, farmers tend periodically to acquire new seed increasing the range of varieties they grow. They also mix the new seed with their old seed to give their maize desired traits from the new variety. Finally they obtain new seed to make up for partial or complete seed loss. Many farmers are frequent experimenters, trying out new varieties on small areas. In this way they reduce the risk of adopting a new variety.

Badstue’s study highlights the need to understand farmer’s perspectives and practical approaches, and to link them with scientists’ models and perceptions of seed systems. She also analyzes the social organization of seed supply, emphasizing the roles and workings of social relations and trust. Farmers rely on information from the supplier about the quality and appropriateness of seed; they strongly prefer to obtain seed from people they know and trust. These transactions take place within a broader framework of social relationships and a culture of mutual assistance.

Under current conditions, these local maize seed practices appear to work effectively. They provide farmers with a relatively secure, low-cost supply of seed and a range of valued varieties that meet local production and consumption objectives and are adapted to local agro-ecological conditions. Farmers’ seed practices also maintain and conserve maize genetic diversity.

However, maize yields in this region are low, and farmers face losses from drought and grain storage pests. There is therefore potential for improved seed or other interventions to help farmers improve their livelihoods. Because trust is such a key issue, there is a need to find effective and trusted ways to share information and technology with farmers, for example by using partners on the ground, such as non-government and community-based organizations, or by working with respected farmers as seed dealers. At the same time, Badstue concludes, it may in the future become necessary to actively support seed flows between farmers to strengthen the conservation of maize genetic diversity in the field and ensure farmers’ access to a range of varieties, for example by organizing seed fairs.

“Studies like this demonstrate the importance of understanding farmers’ motivations and the context they are operating in—in socioeconomic as well as agro-environmental terms,” says Jonathan Hellin, CIMMYT poverty specialist. “In the past, improved germplasm often has not been taken up by smallholder farmers, but a thorough understanding of local practices allows CIMMYT and other organizations involved in agricultural development, to assess the likely impact pathways of new technologies and other interventions, and so to target them more effectively to farmers’ needs.”

This work is part of a broader program to understand maize genetic diversity and farmer practices in the Central Valleys and in other regions of southern Mexico. Through its work in Mexico and throughout the developing world, CIMMYT continues to compile a wealth of information on diverse farming systems and an understanding of the need for locally-targeted involvement with local partners.

For information: Jonathan Hellin, Poverty Specialist, (j.hellin@cgiar.org)

¹ Badstue, L.B. 2006. Smallholder seed practices: Maize seed management in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, Mexico. PhD thesis, Wageningen University, The Netherlands. Recently published in book form.