Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB) refers to a methodology of plant breeding that engages farmers as active participants in the process of trialing and selection instead of merely as recipients. PPB is a practice that emerged out of the green revolution as a loose continuum of strategies that involve collaboration between farmers and breeders to varying degrees—with the understanding that farmers are best equipped to understand the traits and qualities that will allow a crop to thrive within the unique environmental stressors and production strategies of their operation. This is the process through which we develop novel varieties, and through which we collect information about the way traits express themselves under different environmental and methodological conditions.

If you’re interested in trialing for us, or have a breeding project in mind, email us at freedseedfederation@gmail.com

For an in-depth discussion of the history and application of PPB, we recommend this 2016 paper by Shelton and Tracy.