What is Participatory Research and How is it Practised in Participatory Plant Breeding ?
Before we can begin to addess the question of “what works” in participatory research, even within a relatively narrow sphere such as plant breeding, it is essential to make some important distinctions among the plethora of participatory approaches in use. Since this paper focuses on application of participatory research in plant breeding, we also need to define participatory plant breeding (PPB). PPB has evolved mainly to address the difficulties of poor farmers in developing countries. In fact there is no reason why the approach should be confined to work with low income farmers. Basically, PPB is a set of approaches that apply in situations where client demand for different varietal traits is poorly understood and difficult to diagnose with conventional market research methods. For example, where the variablity of the agro-ecological envirioment requires wide range of different genotypes, or producers are unable to obtain the complementary fertilizer and crop protection inputs needed
