SEED AND PLANT GENETIC RESOURCES RESTORATION IN DISASTER AND CONFLICT SITUATIONS IN ANGOLA:
Some Experiences From Over 20 Years of Conflict Situations
Elizabeth M. Matos
Chairperson, National Plant Genetic Resources
Committee, Luanda, Angola

1. INTRODUCTION

In October 1998, Angola is still in a serious phase of increasing internal conflict, with all this implies in terms of death, destruction, insecurity, restricted movement of people and produce. While the country is still unable to implement measures for a post-conflict situation, it has been in a high or low level conflict situation for over 20 years and cannot afford to wait for its final conclusion before taking measures to ensure local seed supplies and to conserve its great wealth of plant genetic resources (PGR). Over 85% of Angola's farmers are small-scale subsistence farmers.

Angola has an area of over 1,200,000 km², ranging in latitude between approximately 8^º S and 17^º S and in altitude from sea level to over 1,500 m. Its natural vegetation includes humid tropical forests, savannas and deserts, and it has climates and soils that support a large range of tropical and temperate crops. Its population is estimated at between 12 and 13 million.

The nature of the conflict in Angola in relation to seed supplies and PGR conservation.

Angola has been in a state of internal armed conflict since before independence in 1975. The great majority of the population lives in government held areas. This includes most of the urban population and large agricultural areas, although at various times over the past two decades in some provinces these have been restricted to a few tens of kilometers around provincial capitals, and with high populations of displaced people. The highest population centres are in coastal towns (3 million in and around the capital) and escarpment areas to the east of the coast. Apart from regional drought episodes, these areas are prone to insufficient and/or erratic rainfall.

In the period between late 1970s and 1992, seeds were imported through the sole government seed importing company, "Angosementes". The Ministry of Agriculture distributed these seeds in government areas. Until 1980s, there was small-scale multiplication of basic seed produced at the Agricultural Research Institute in Huambo.

Unita held areas have been mainly rural, inland, at higher altitudes and with more reliable rainfall patterns. These are generally better agricultural areas and over the period up to 1992 received very restricted supplies of imported seed. As a result of restrictions on movement and consequent isolation of many farming communities in both government and Unita held areas, a myriad of local varieties have emerged, from what was effectively an enforced in situ conservation situation.

The most destructive conflicts occurred in the period immediately following nationwide elections in 1992, causing further widespread population displacement (up to one quarter of the whole population) moving mainly to the relative safety of government held provincial capitals and principally to the drier to semi-arid coastal provinces. A new cycle of conflict and consequent displacements has arisen since May 1998.

2. PLANT GENETIC RESOURCES

Prior to independence there was no recognition in general, nor in the plant breeding department of the Agricultural Research Institute, of the need to conserve plant genetic resources per se. Breeders' held working collections of commercial crops. There were no plant breeding programmes for main subsistence crops of local farmers (e.g. sorghum, millet, and cowpea) and thus no ex situ conservation of PGR of local farmers' varieties of subsistence crops. As a result of the size and variation in country's physical/climatic conditions there was, and still is, a vast wealth of local farmers' varieties, almost all in farmers' fields. Extremely few Angolan PGR were collected and placed in international banks in the colonial period.

In the post independence period, due to the continuous war situation, no collections were made by international institutions. There was also no national recognition of the importance of PGR conservation until 1987 and the setting up of the SADC PGR Network and the National Plant Genetic Resources Committee in 1989. There are now some 1,200 accessions of local crop varieties in the National Plant Genetic Resources bank, collected since 1991.

On the down side, the 800 accessions held at the Agricultural Research Institute (ARI) in Huambo, including a large number of breeders lines and some local varieties, were lost during the period of Unita's occupation of Huambo between 1992 and 1994.

Angola's rich agricultural germplasm is not, with very few exceptions, being conserved in international gene banks. Thus what is, or has been, lost as a result of disaster and conflict, cannot be re-introduced or regenerated, from internationally held material.

3. SEED AND TOOL DISTRIBUTIONS TO DISPLACED PEOPLE AND RETURNEES (post 1992)

Following the cease-fire in 1994, Angola has experienced over 3 years of efforts to implement the Lusaka Peace Accord, and at the time of writing there is a serious upsurge in conflict. Between 1995 and 1998 international UN agencies, the government, international and national NGOs made emergency distributions of seeds and tools to displaced and war-torn populations, and post 1996, to those beginning to return to their home areas.

The results of four evaluation surveys of these distributions, made between 1996 and 1998, covering a total of more than 3,000 farmers in 13 provinces, together with the experience of 7 years of PGR collecting in the accessible parts of the country, are the basis for the following conclusions.

Although farmers are keen to receive new and improved seed, they are well aware of the adaptive characteristics of their own local varieties, especially in marginal areas and with low inputs. Farmers make every effort to hold onto their own seed stock, the variety whose characteristics they know and trust. A very high proportion (over 90%) of displaced and resident farmers sowed at least some local seed varieties. Some of this seed in recent years has undoubtedly come from Unita held areas, the result of exchanges made for imported goods from coastal areas. Traders, often women taking lifts on variety of precarious means of transport, will cross enemy lines to barter imported goods for grain of various kinds.

The surveys showed that displaced farmers did have local seed, obtained from resident local farmers, from markets, and other sources but they may also have lost the local variety they know or would like to plant. It has not yet been possible to identify which varieties have really become extinct and which may still be available in areas that are inaccessible at present.

While emergency seed supplies are required in specific drastic situations there are disadvantages to the blanket distribution of imported seed. It is often not appropriate to local conditions, specifically to the marginal, low-input management conditions of displaced farmers.

In highly variable areas with, for example, differing growing season lengths, no single variety will be appropriate for all areas.

In conflict and disaster situations, imported seed is often late arriving in the hands of the displaced farmer. This is crucial if the crop demands that seed is sown at first sign of short rainy season (more than 75% of farmers surveyed requested earlier seed deliveries).

4. REQUIREMENTS FOR INCREASING CROP AND SEED PRODUCTION.

Displaced and returning farmers need to be helped to cultivate a larger area. They may have lost their animal traction/ploughs and need new animals and ploughs (or they need some one with a tractor to plow and prepare the area to be sown).

They need hand tools (such as hoes, cutlass and file), and in sufficient quantity that several members of a family can work in the field simultaneously.

In Angola, the need for seed was not the first priority of displaced or returning farmers, since in most areas they could obtain seed one way or another. The exceptions to this are when a large displaced population seeks refuge entirely within a 5-10 km radius of the provincial capital, e.g. Malange 1993/4. In such cases, there can be a total lack of seed. In these situations, a much higher amount of seed, preferably from the nearest possible sources, should be distributed to displaced farmers.

Farmers showed a strong desire to receive improved imported material, to try it out in their own conditions, to allow crossing and selection to improve their locally adapted varieties. It would be highly recommend for the wide scale introduction of participatory plant breeding projects, particularly for farmers in difficult marginal situations. This would also mean the opening up of genebanks for such use. However, to do this, there is a need to establish an area in the genebank (or elsewhere?) that is responsible for the multiplication of genebank material for distribution. In Angola at present, only samples of 50-100 seeds maximum are available for distribution. The NPGR programme is just starting a programme to multiply some accessions for wider distribution to farmers and NGOs.

Before introgression has altered some local characteristics and before other varieties are lost through abandon in times of conflict, emergency collection of PGR is needed in conflict and disaster areas. The means used to do this may not be conventional PGR collection missions. Local staff, NGOs, extension workers can be trained as "paracollectors" to do this urgent task. In Angola, national and provincial workshops have been held to raise awareness of the value of local PGR, maintenance of agro-biodiversity and to train participants in methods of small-scale seed production, improved local seed storage and the collection of local germplasm. The result is that the national bank has now received numerous samples from areas that are still inaccessible to its staff. These last activities have been possible through a FAO/TCP project to save local germplasm.

There is need for safety duplicate collections to be held in a bank in another part of the country, outside the country, and/or in regional or international bank for safe-keeping.

The National PGR Committee is unequivocal that until such time as there is international agreement on the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from PGR, international NGOs should be under an obligation to abide by the International Code of Conduct on the Collection and Transfer of Plant Genetic Resources. They should not remove PGR from the country in a disaster situation, at least not without the prior informed consent of the country concerned.

In the area of seed multiplication, there is a recent example of successful collaboration between local farmers and the ARI in Huambo that has resulted in the multiplication of a good local variety of maize. This was purified by breeders in the ARI and small quantities distributed to farmers associations. They multiplied the seed, returning the original amount to the project for distribution to other farmers and divided the rest of the yield between members of the association. By the end of the season, other farmers were queuing to join the scheme.

 

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