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Seed Systems and Farmers’ Seed Choices: The Case of Maizein the Peruvian Amazon

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An Erratum to this article was published on 13 July 2010

Abstract

This paper analyzes how local seed system institutions support seed diversity, itself a requirement for agrobiodiversity maintained on-farm. The paper focuses on maize seed diversity in the central Peruvian Amazon. Using household and community level data from three different cultural groups from the central Peruvian Amazon, empirical results show the importance of collective action and the mediating role of ethnicity in the functioning of informal seed systems that in turn affect farmers’ choices regarding conservation of seed diversity. This implies that policies are needed to protect the relatively open seed exchanges of such local practices as a way to sustain on-farm agrobiodiversity.

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Notes

  1. Only one farmer in our dataset cultivated on riverbanks.

  2. Other earlier studies focusing on this region attest that sourcing seeds from outside farmers’ villages is done to expand the choice set for traits (Arevalo 1999; Panduro 1999).

  3. We refer to traditional livelihoods as being largely based on a subsistence system, with less use of salaried work in regional commercial hubs. While we recognize that exchange with external people, including travel to faraway commercial hubs, has occurred historically among all the three population groups, we use the term market integration to denote occasions which have been occurring more frequently throughout recent years, with a relatively higher degree of such external contacts.

  4. Peru is in the process of joining the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) in the context of the implementation of a free trade agreement with the United States and although it is not clear whether this would have implications for the conservation and use of landraces, it does indicate a new policy envioronment for seed systems in the country.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Consorcio para el Desarrollo Sostenible de Ucayali (CODESU), in particular Luis Collado and Roger Pinedo, for data collection and technical support in the field. Special thanks are also owed to community members in the Peruvian Amazon and to Manuel Glave, Ricardo Sevilla, Claudia Ituarte, Ernesto Apto, Luis Limachi, Isabel Ore, Elinor Ostrom and Christine Padoch for comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Financial support from the Cambridge European Trust, CT Taylor Fund and St Edmunds College, Cambridge, is acknowledged. Lastly, we thank Judith Thompson for editorial assistance.

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  1. United Nations University - Institute of Advanced Studies, 1-1-1 Minato Mirai, Nishi-ku, Yokohama, 220-8502, Japan

    Per M. Stromberg, Unai Pascual & Mauricio R. Bellon

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  1. Per M. Stromberg
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Correspondence to Per M. Stromberg.

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An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10745-010-9340-4

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Stromberg, P.M., Pascual, U. & Bellon, M.R. Seed Systems and Farmers’ Seed Choices: The Case of Maizein the Peruvian Amazon. Hum Ecol 38, 539–553 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-010-9333-3

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