Participatory Research (PR) at CIP with Potato Farming Systems in the Andes: Evolution and Prospects

Spanning nearly 40 years, Participatory Research (PR) at the International Potato Center (CIP) covered most major areas of agricultural research, including new seed and storage technologies, integrated management of pests and diseases, plant breeding, in situ conservation of genetic resources, and value chains. Participatory research at CIP influenced academic and applied research at many other institutions. CIP played a pioneering role in PR in the 1970s. Since then, PR has waxed and waned (Thiele et al. 2001) and moved to higher levels of scale from farm-level management to value chains, food systems, and policy. This chapter provides an update, focusing on work in the Andes, where several PR experiences took place. The following case studies of PR at CIP are organized roughly chronologically (although some methods overlapped in time). They start with farmer-back-to-farmer, and continue through IPM pilot units, participatory variety selection, FFS, participatory approaches for native potato variety value chains using the participatory market chain analysis (PMCA), advocacy for PR and policy change (via the Alliance for Andean Change), ending with nutrition-related PR in more recent years.