This booklet is a practical guide. It was developed to foster the facilitator’s handling of the various training materials of the Community-Based Seed System (CBSS).
It covers the various tools and methods used to reinforce the capacity building of seed producers and technicians.
It explains in detail how to conduct the three major CBSS workshops:
- The CBSS inception workshop;
- The one farm field workshop
- The evaluation and awareness raising workshop.
It is, however, strongly recommended to adapt the methodological approaches described in this booklet to local realities. In fact, CBSS is a dynamic tool that evolves according to farmers’ concerns. Its main objectives are to ensure a good coverage of the village communities’ needs for seed and seedlings and to link traditional agriculture to the market by professionalizing farmers’ organizations.
Authors of this guide hope that the facilitator will know how to suitably use the various participatory tools and methods proposed to bolster and add value to indigenous knowledge and farmers’ practices. As stated by Braun and his colleagues in issue nnumber 1 of Low external input sustainable agriculture (LEISA) journal (2000) promoting sustainable and low-input agriculture: “The main factor for increasing farmer’s innovation capacity is not the technology perse, but the social development process at grass root level for any experimentation and training”. These ideas require some thinking.
The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and Michigan State University (MSU) provided funds for translating the manual into French.