Decentralised participatory plant breeding

The objective of the Participatory Plant Breeding project conducted in Syria was to test an alternative way of producing varieties of crops such as barley for marginal environments. The project operated in nine villages chosen to represent variations in annual rainfall, soil types, management practices, farm sizes, types of livestock ownership, and the formal edutation level of farmers. It showed that plant breeding programmes can be organised so that farmers bacome major actors in selection, testing and multiplication of new cultivars.