Access to seeds and plant genetic resources (PGRs) is a vital element of food security and sustainable development. Most development interventions and activities around seeds and PGRs typically have a scientific and/or technical focus on production or conservation concerns. But scientific and technical efforts, while valuable and important, sometimes fail to consider questions of how seeds and PGRs fit into the bigger picture of people’s livelihoods.
Forming one output of the Livelihood Support Programme’s sub-programme 3.1, this study was commissioned out of recognition that the issue of access by poor households to seeds and PGRs is an area in which knowledge is lacking, and that a more holistic approach to seeds and PGRs work is needed to strengthen livelihoods. This study therefore fits within the broader remit of sub-programme 3.1 to improve access to natural assets by the poor and, more broadly, within the FAO’s strategic objectives to promote sustainable rural livelihoods and more equitable access to resources.
This study uses a livelihoods perspective to facilitate understanding of the role played by seeds and PGRs in rural people’s livelihoods and considers how a livelihood perspective may strengthen understanding of issues of access. A sustainable livelihoods perspective offers a way of thinking about the linkages among vulnerability, poverty and environmental or natural resource management. It is grounded and contextual, looking at how different people pursue a range and combination of livelihood strategies given a particular vulnerability context, combination of assets and set of opportunities and constraints presented by institutional structures and processes.
Livelihoods perspectives demonstrate how seeds and PGRs are key assets that are linked to other livelihood resources and strategies in complex ways. This study maps out some of the ways that seeds and PGRs contribute to livelihood security, going beyond their direct contributions to food and income to consider more dynamic and less visible ways in which they enable households to manage various forms of uncertainty and risk, maximise use of other productive assets, and facilitate diverse livelihood strategies. A livelihoods approach is therefore a complement to conventional seeds/PGR interventions, but one that requires a different outlook. It encompasses more than just technical or genetic approaches, but also draws on social, political, economic, and institutional perspectives.
For these contributions to be realised, and goals of food and livelihood security to be met, access to seeds and PGRs is key. The processes through which access is secured are often, however, poorly understood or under-appreciated, leading to the entrenchment of false assumptions about access, to the neglect of important access routes, and to a limited understanding of the factors that influence and the forces that bear on access. A livelihoods perspective focuses attention on access, and enables us to unpack what it means in different contexts and for different groups of people.
A central argument of this study is that the value-added of a livelihoods approach lies in its attention to the importance of access to resources and to the institutions, both formal and informal, that shape and mediate such access. These institutions operate at multiple levels, and range from local networks and social arrangements to national and international rules and regulations. Rural people may gain access to seeds/PGRs through a number of mechanisms or channels, each of which is affected by a range of institutions and is predicated on particular contextual factors.
Given the complexity and contextual nature of access questions, three cases are used. The case studies are: emergency seed relief, wild and weedy foods, and farmer engagement with agricultural research systems. These case studies were selected deliberately to demonstrate that the issues and questions of access vary across contexts. Each case suggests how a livelihoods approach can help highlight the range of institutions and policies, as well as the links with other assets, that are important in shaping access to seeds and/or plant genetic resources. Together, the case studies demonstrate: the assumptions made about access/lack of access; neglected channels through which people access seeds and PGRs; links with other livelihood resources; and the way that local questions of access are ‘connected up’ to institutions and processes at national and international levels.
Seeing, not to mention trying to understand, the bigger picture in which seeds and PGRs connect with livelihoods, is not always straightforward. The final section of the study, drawing on analysis in the preceding sections, offers a framework and checklist of questions to facilitate thinking about access to seeds and PGRs and appropriate entry points. After identifying further steps that may be taken to improve understanding of issues around access to seeds and PGRs, the study concludes with a call for the development of new kinds of thought and practice to better understand how seeds and PGRs are located within livelihood systems and to enable locally grounded work that spans institutional scales.
