Local knowledge is an important tool for conserving biodiversity and is closely linked to local environmental systems. The accumulated experiences, skills and values of a local environment can go on to guide sustainable resource use. The implementation of the Participatory Plant Breeding Project in Guangxi has attained a remarkable achievement by putting local indigenous knowledge into practice.

Summary
Hybrid maize is now being grown on approximately 80 percent of the total maize-production area in China, particularly the uniform and high-potential areas of the Northern Plain. The introduction of a market economy has resulted in an increasingly profit-driven seed production and supply system. Hybrid breeding and hybrid seed production have drawn more attention and investments than ever before. Conversely, a study done in Guangxi, revealed that more than 80 percent of the seed supply is from farmers’ own seed systems, maintaining diversity for the interests and sustainable livelihoods of all farmers.

The project on “Participatory Plant Breeding” is implemented by the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy (CCAP) and the Guangxi Maize Research Institute; it is supported by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Ford Foundation.

Biodiversity conservation - promoting indigenous knowledge & community participation
The project has two key goals: to better promote and use the techniques that enable indigenous women and men in local communities to conserve biodiversity; and to find ways to involve those communities in the design and implementation of on-farm biodiversity conservation.

For this, the project has been working in the province since 1999 to improve the livelihoods of resource-poor farmers through participatory plant breeding (PPB) techniques. The field experiments use both a researcher-led and a farmer-led approach with different research focuses in each trial for comparison. More than 40 varieties were identified as target varieties for ppb trials at the Gmri station and in five villages. Already three farmer-preferred varieties have been released and used in the project villages. In addition, five exotic varieties from cimmyt have been locally adapted, and five landraces from the trial villages have been improved through the joint efforts of farmers and breeders. An improved variety from women farmers has been tested and certified by the formal breeding institution and is widely used in the project region.

Policy makers recognize farmer efforts in managing bio-diversity
The field experiments have proved to be effective in strengthening interaction, communication, and collaboration among the stakeholders. They have also strengthened the local level organizational and decision-making capacity of farmers. Among the formal breeders there has been an impressive change in attitude¾the needs and interests of farmers are now considered and included in the breeding plan and research priorities of the institutions. And farmers’ efforts and knowledge in genetic biodiversity management are increasingly recognized by policy makers at both provincial and national levels.

Participatory approaches recognized in management of crop improvement and agro-biodiversity
The success of the project has led gmri to combine gene bank conservation with in?situ conservation of landraces, and the China Crop Science Institute will include the local germplasm conservation efforts in Guangxi in its national plan for broadening the genetic base. ccap has played a crucial role in expanding the impact and influence of the results at national policy levels. The project was presented and discussed at a national policy-planning workshop in Beijing, March 2002. This important conference was the first time that 40 prominent national agricultural policy makers and maize researchers had discussed the participatory approach as an alternative and complementary methodology for crop improvement and agrobiodiversity management.

Discovering the diversity of options
Local indigenous Knowledge illustrates the principle of sustainable development. Local knowledge is an important concept for managing biodiversity. The concept acknowledges that there are different systems that are embedded within the respective cultural systems. It also means that there are diverse perceptions and values on well-being and sustainable livelihoods.

Approaches which are based on local knowledge will come up with a diversity of options for sustainable development within different cultural and ecological environments.