Bioversity International

• Payment for Agrobiodiversity Conservation Services (PACS)
• Crop Genetic Choices to Reduce Pest and Diseases Pressures On-Farm
• Conservation and Sustainable Use of Cultivated and Wild Tropical Fruit Diversity: Promoting Sustainable Livelihood, Food Security and Ecosystem Services
• Genebank cost-effectiveness decision-support tool
• Impact Assessment

Donor: Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture

Payment for Environmental Services (PES) schemes, hailed by some observers as, “arguably, the most promising innovation in conservation since Rio 1992” have tended to focus on carbon sequestration and storage; non-domesticated biodiversity protection, watershed protection and protection of landscape aesthetics. There has been almost no explicit consideration of PES in the context of agrobiodiversity conservation and only limited consideration of indigenous farmer contexts.

The ability of “payment for agrobiodiversity conservation services” (PACS) schemes to permit the “capture” of public conservation values at the farmer level, thereby creating incentives for the conservation of agrobiodiversity and supporting poverty alleviation, will be explored through this project.

Project implementation will be carried out in the context of Bioversity’s on-going Neglected and Underutilized Species Project, a global effort supported by IFAD, GTZ and other agencies, aiming at enhancing the use of nutritious but little researched crops (download report here). Better nutrition, incomes and empowerment of stakeholder groups are the main objectives of this global effort, currently focusing on Bolivia, Peru, India and Yemen. The project undertakes a wide spectrum of interlinked activities such as assessment and maintenance of cultural and genetic diversity, selection of better varieties, improvement of processing and value-addition, enhancement of capacities of stakeholders and marketing as well as influencing policy makers and raise public awareness.

The goal of the PACS project is to assess the potential for PACS schemes to create incentives for the conservation of agrobiodiversity and improve indigenous farmer livelihoods. This is to be achieved by:

• Identifying appropriate valuation tools and analytical approaches for determining the conservation and livelihoods contribution of potential PACS schemes.
• Realising in-depth analysis of opportunities and constraints for the establishment of a PACS scheme in case study sites (India and Peru).
• Strengthening national partner and graduate student capacities to undertake economic analysis of genetic resource conservation; and enhancing the awareness of policy-makers of the underlying institutional opportunities and constraints to establishing PACS schemes.

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Donor: Global Environmental Facility (GEF)

Bioversity’s GEF Pests and Diseases project seeks to assist farmers to exploit the natural resistance that has resulted from the co-evolution of pests and the diversity of traditional crop varieties still grown in farmers’ fields. Intra-specific diversity is considered to be one of farmers’ strategies to deal with imminent and future yield losses due to pest and diseases and/or other biotic and abiotic constraints. When choosing planting material this genetic diversity could be available to farmers in the form of landraces, local or improved varieties.

Some research has already been done on quantifying the effect of crop variety choice on output, output variability and probability of crop failure.

The use of stated preference choice experiments within this project context will be used to address issues related to the importance of disease and pest (DP) resistance relative to other traits, the degree to which DP resistance may be traded-off with other traits and how different household types have different preferences for DP resistance.

Production functions that accounts for the abatement effect of control inputs will also be used to value the effect of farmer genetic choices on pest and disease control and thus on farmers’ vulnerability.

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Donor: UNEP-GEF

This project aims to improve livelihoods and food security of target beneficiaries through the conservation and use of tropical fruit tree genetic resources in India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.  This project combines both in situ and ex situ conservation measures. Within this project market and non-market values of tropical fruit tree genetic resources will be assessed and good practices for marketing and management of these resources will be tested and implemented.

The linkage of smallholders to agricultural markets through farmer organizations, increased involvement of the private sector in value chains, and improvement of governance is still considered to be a strategic tool for poverty reduction. However, increased marketing to more distant markets with strict food safety requirements also requires farmers to produce more uniform products and some food safety policies may restrict the entry of certain products. Farmers attempting to comply with the international standards may as a result lose agricultural biodiversity on their farms.

This however does not necessarily mean that agrobiodiversity is not important in agricultural markets. The major share of tropical fruits produced is still sold in the domestic market rather than being exported. Domestic markets, which may provide more opportunity for agrobiodiversity to be sold, however are often associated with significant price volatility, a lack of value addition and poor price premium for good quality. There is thus a need to target appropriate markets and products and enable smallholders to participate.

As part of the preparation phase of this project several pilot studies were carried out:

• Integrating biodiversity conservation and livelihood improvement: The role of markets for mango varieties and Garcinia species in India. Paper Forthcoming.
• Marketing Local Biodiversity in Thailand: Identification of a Possible Good Practice for On-farm Biodiversity Management of Tropical Fruit Trees. Download full paper here.
• Economic Analysis of Value Addition along the Supply Chain of Fresh and Semi-Processed Products – the Case of Totapuri Mango in South India. Available at page 75 of this document.
• Varietal differences in the supply chain of two mango varieties in south India. Abstract can be viewed here.
• Enhancing biodiversity management and utilization to improve livelihoods – a case study of 'kokum' in India. Abstract can be viewed here.
• Collective action for the marketing of underutilized tropical fruits in South and Southeast Asia. Abstract can be viewed here.

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CG Genebanks

Donor: The World Bank

Conserving germplasm is a long-term activity that requires a long-term perspective, but  genebanks are typically funded on a short-term basis. Phase 1 of the project “Collective Action for the Rehabilitation of Global Public Goods in the CGIAR Genetic Resources System” (GPG), the thorough analyses of conservation costs previously undertaken by the Systemwide Genetic Resources Program (SGRP), and other economics research about the benefits of genebanks have demonstrated the importance of sustained funding and the high expected benefits of ex-situ conservation relative to costs, assuming “good practices” (Smale and Drucker, 2007; Smale and Koo 2003, Day-Rubenstein et al. 2006).

The expansion of genebank collections from the 1970s through the 1990s led to management challenges. These included the duplication of accessions, backlogs in regeneration, and insufficient or untimely provision of information to users (Altoveros and Rao 1998; Engels and Rao 1998; Koo and Wright 2008). At the same time, there was increasing recognition that integration and coordination of the collections as a global system offered important functional and economic advantages.  In 1995, SGRP commissioned an external review of the CGIAR genebanks to provide an assessment of what was needed to meet conservation standards. The first phase of the GPG project addressed the main recommendations from this review, including amelioration of genebank facilities and genebank procedures.
    
The second phase of the project (GPG2) builds on the progress made in the first phase, with a focus on establishing good standards and practices in genebank operations and encouraging a systems perspective. The current challenge, as viewed by those engaged in this project, is not to increase the numbers of accessions, but to ensure the quality, security, accessibility and sustainability of the in-trust collections. An underlying assumption is that a better allocation of resources will lead to better performance. The goal of the economics task in the GPG2 project is to develop and disseminate a computerized tool that will support strategic decision-making by genebank managers. It is expected that genebank managers will be able to apply the tool to answer management questions and craft strategies in pursuit of good practices or to enhance their performance. Eventually, the tool could be generalized in order to explore the effects of resource allocation decisions within an integrated genebank system.


European Genebank System (AEGIS)

Donor: ECPGR

In support of the European Cooperative Programme for Plant Genetic Resources (ECPGR), a collaborative Programme among most European countries, aimed at facilitating the long-term conservation on a cooperative basis and the increased utilization of plant genetic resources in Europe:

• develop an appropriate preliminary methodological framework with which to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of collection management in the European Genebank Integrated System (AEGIS).

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Bioversity’s primary mission is to promote the conservation of agricultural biodiversity. There are two aspects to this. The first is ex situ conservation. Bioversity contributes towards a global strategy for the ex situ storage of agricultural biodiversity through a) support of the global  trust fund and its activities, b) technical support for national seeds banks, and c) supporting international treaties and other multinational agreements that improve access to and use of the genetic material stored in gene banks.

The second aspect is in situ conservation. Although a global strategy for in situ conservation does not yet exist, Bioversity goes beyond the narrow establishment of in situ conservation at heritage sites (or sites of origin) to promote the more widespread conservation of agricultural biodiversity by many farmers at many sites. It does this through strategies that enhance the private value of biodiversity to farmers and consumers (e.g. by showing how biodiversity can increase the productivity and resilience of farming systems, improve diets and, by making markets for neglected foods work better, enhances the demand and price farmers receive for these crops). Such strategies encourage more farmers in more places to increase the diversity of the crops and varieties they grow. By enhancing the private value of biodiversity to farmers and consumers Bioversity achieves “win-win” outcomes—more biodiversity and improved livelihoods.

Thus while helping the poor is an important CGIAR goal, given Bioversity’s modus operandi – see below – and areas of comparative advantage, for Bioversity, achieving livelihood impacts are an intermediate goal. By showing how conservation of biodiversity can help poor farmers and consumers, it leads farmers to conserve more biodiversity simply for their own private gain, leading to the ultimate outcome of increasing the in situ conservation of agricultural biodiversity. This is a win-win outcome that only Bioversity can achieve.

Bioversity’s modus operandi is to work through partnerships with other institutions that range from large international organizations to small community-based organizations (CBOs), and a host of others in between. such as national institutions, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), universities, and private entrepreneurs (IPGRI, 2004). Bioversity objectives are achieved both by conducting primary research and providing technical training, information, guidance and direction to partners by drawing on the diversity of disciplines and expertise within Bioversity and other advanced research organizations linked to each other by Bioversity networking activities.

Any Bioversity ex post impact assessment study starts from the assumption that impact is achieved by many partners working together. One of the challenges is to carry out traditional cost-benefit analyses in the context of impacts (e.g. the conservation of biodiversity or methods to empower communities to manage their genetic resources more effectively) that cannot be easily valued in terms of increases in yield or input efficiency. Due attention therefore is given to the development of sound methodologies throughout a new area of work devoted to valuing agro-biodiversity.  

The major areas where Bioversity expects to realise impact (or a significant improvement in economic, social or environmental conditions) are as follows:  

• More supportive policy environments for the conservation and use of agro-biodiversity
• Increased ex situ conservation of agricultural biodiversity
• Increased efficiency of conservation efforts through improved technologies and increased international cooperation
• Increased conservation of agricultural biodiversity in situ and on farms
• Increased use of genetic diversity for crop improvement (both directly by farmers and in scientific breeding programmes)
• Reduction in production losses due to diseases, pests and drought (and other factors) through the deployment of biodiversity
• Increased income and improved livelihoods of poor farmers derived from agricultural biodiversity
• Better nutrition through the use of agricultural biodiversity
• Increased empowerment of rural people to manage their biodiversity
• Reduction of environmental degradation or improved environmental conditions.

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