Seed multiplication by resource-limited farmers: Proceedings of the Latin American Workshop - Goiânia, Brazil, 7–11 April 2003

FAO, through its Seed and Plant Genetics Resources Service, is conducting a series of expert consultations, workshops, and conferences to generate ideas, develop methodologies and facilitate initiatives aimed at strengthening on-farm seed multiplication (the informal seed system), thereby addressing the seed security needs of smallholder farmers. As in sub-Saharan Africa, the informal seed system in Latin America receives inadequate attention from policy-makers and is not accorded the importance it deserves in the agricultural production system. The fact that Latin America is also faced with most of the inequities in the informal seed sector and, in particular, constraints in the conduct and effectiveness of on-farm seed multiplication was amply borne out during a one-day round table organized by FAO in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, with the collaboration of the Pan American Seed Congress. In line with the recommendations of that meeting, FAO, with funding from the Netherlands, organized the Latin American Workshop on Seed Multiplication by Resource-limited Farmers to identify the major constraints facing on-farm seed production and the groups of resource-limited farmers to be targeted, and to propose solutions for increasing the availability of good quality seed to smallholder farmers. These proceedings should serve both as a good record of the workshop and as a guide towards the development of interventions by Latin American governments, as well as by national and international institutions and agencies that may desire to assist further in this topic.