I'm posting this info on behalf of REAP-Canada, in part because the
topic interests me, and in part because Roger Samson wanted a
tried-and-true pixel-wrangler to convey this message to SANET. Looks
like a real interesting gathering of farmers and researchers.
peace
misha
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Why the Need for Farmer Involvement in Plant Breeding?
Since the origins of agriculture, farmers have been involved in the
improvement of plant materials and livestock to aide in their
ability to grow food. This almost ageless tradition has been
actively continued in the case of livestock, however approximately
100 years ago, things took a turn for the worse in the case of
plants. Farmers almost completely gave up their responsibility of
plant improvement to government research stations, and more recently,
to the private sector.
Farmers are becoming increasingly aware how recent takeovers in the
seed industry by biotechnology corporations are not necessarily
beneficial for them. Higher seed costs in the future and lack of
improvement in non-genetically modified crops are two impending
problems on the horizon. The recent development of the "terminator
technology" (seeds that cannot be re-germinated) has heightened
concerns particularly for third world farmers already suffering from
indebtedness.
Finding Practical Ways to Increase Farmer Participation in Plant
Breeding
This first forum in Canada on Participatory and Farmer-Led plant
breeding will showcase positive examples of how farmers in Canada, and
around the world, are taking control of their futures by becoming
active in plant improvement programs. As well, it will enable plant
breeders, independent seed companies, and government funding agencies
to better understand how on-farm population based breeding programs
can reduce research costs and accelerate plant improvement for
positive attributes such as horizontal disease resistance which can
eliminate pesticide usage.
One Day Forum on:
Participatory and Farmer-Led Plant Breeding
Thursday, September 24, 1998
University Centre, Room 103,
University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Sponsored by
Canadian International Development Agency-Environment and Scholarships
Program Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario Organic Crop
Improvement Association (Ontario) Philippine Development Assistance
Program Resource Efficient Agricultural Production-Canada
Forum Fee: $20 regular
$10 members of sponsoring organizations and students
$ 5 students with ID cards
For more information on the forum contact:
Roger Samson, REAP-Canada, Box 125, Ste Anne de Bellevue, Quebec, H9X
3V9
Tel. (514) 398-7743, Fax (514) 398-7972,
E-Mail: REAP@Interlink.net
http://InfoSys.AgrEnv.McGill.CA/~reap/
or
Hubert Earl, Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario, Box 127,
Wroxeter, Ont., NOG 2XO
Tel. (613) 924-2052 Fax.(613) 924-9755
http://www.gks.com/efao
Morning Session
Chairperson, Jill Carr-Harris, Executive Director, Philippine
Development Assistance Program, Ottawa
9:30 Welcome: Roger Samson, Executive Director, Resource Efficient
Agricultural Production-Canada
9:45 Neal Stoskopf, Professor, Dept. of Plant Agriculture, University
of Guelph, Current trends in plant breeding and the seed industry
10:15 Raoul Robinson, Pathologist and Plant Breeder,
New approaches to plant breeding involving farmers
11:00 break
11:15 Emmanual Yap, Executive Director, MASIPAG, Los Banos,
Philippines, Farmer efforts in breeding rice and corn in the
Philippines.
12:00 Lunch (in the university courtyard)
Afternoon Session
Chairperson: Hubert Earl, President, Ecological Farmers Association of
Ontario
1:15 Raymond Loo, Bonshaw, PEI. A farm families breeding of "Island
Sunshine": Developing horizontal resistance for potato late blight in
PEI.
2:00 Dean Spaner, Agriculture Canada, St. John's, Newfoundland,
Participatory plant breeding in potatoes and rutabaga
2:30 Break
2:45 Panel Discussion: Opportunities for Increasing Farmer
Participation in Plant Breeding
Duane Falk, Plant breeder, Dept. of Plant Agriculture, University of
Guelph
Raymond Loo, Farmer and plant breeder, Bonshaw, PEI
Dr. Gord Surgeoner, Plants program leader, University of Guelph
Raoul Robinson, Pathologist and plant breeder, Fergus, Ontario
Harro Wehrmann, Ripley, Ontario, Organic Crop Improvement Association
Ted Zettel, Chepstow, Ontario, Ecological Farmers Association of
Ontario
Speakers Profiles
Raymond Loo, On-farm plant breeder and organic farmer; Bonshaw, PEI.
The Loo family has been conducting experiments to develop disease
resistant potato crops on their mixed livestock and market garden farm
since the early 1970's. Eight years of natural selection on their farm
in PEI led to the development of "Island Sunshine", the first potato
variety in Canada with strong tolerance to A-1 and A-2 forms of late
blight. Raymond inherited the lions share of the breeding work from
his father, Gerrit, and uncle, Evert, in 1997. Raymond Loo will relate
the challenges of the family's experience in developing, and pursuing
registration and breeders rights of a new plant variety.
Raoul Robinson, Pathologist and plant breeder; Fergus, Ontario
Raoul Robinson is a Canadian/British plant scientist with 40 years of
wide ranging international experience in crop improvement. Over the
course of his adventurous career, Dr. Robinson has concentrated most
extensively on maize, potatoes, beans and coffee while working in
Africa and Central America. His books include "Return to Resistance:
Breeding Crops to Reduce Pesticide Dependency", "Plant Pathosystems",
and "Host Management in Plant Pathosystems". He is currently working
on his fourth book; "Self Organizing Crop Improvement".
Dean Spaner, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada; St. John's,
Newfoundland
Dean Spaner has worked with canola, soybean and maize breeding
programs at the University of Alberta, University of Guelph, McGill
University and the University of West Indies. He worked for four years
in Trinidad and Tobago developing a green maize breeding program for
small-scale farmers. Presently he works as a plant physiologist and
runs a rutabaga breeding program for small-scale local rutabaga
growers.
Neal Stoskopf, Department of Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph,
Guelph, Ontario.
Neal Stoskopf is a plant breeder and cropping systems researcher. He
has worked extensively to increase food security in Asia and Central
America and was recently awarded a prize from the Chinese government
for increasing food productivity. His books include "Understanding
Crop Production", "Cereal Grain Crops" and "Plant Breeding: Science
and Application". His main plant breeding work in Ontario has been
with winter wheat.
Emmanual Yap, Executive Director, MASIPAG; Los Banos, Philippines
Emmanual Yap has been involved in integrating sustainable farming
initiatives into the organizing, and community building and rural
development work of farming organizations in the Philippines since
1987. MASIPAG means "industrious" in Tagalog, and the organization is
one of the most successful networks of farmer-led plant breeding in
the world. Mr. Yap's role is to encourage and facilitate farmers to
undertake and enhance their own breeding and seed improvement
activities primarily with rice and corn. He holds a Master's of Arts
in Human Geography. His most recent publication is a chapter in the
book: "The Politics of Environment in Southeast Asia".
Panelists
Duane Falk has been a cereal breeder in the crop science division of
the Plant Agriculture Department of the University of Guelph since
1986. He has primarily worked with barley and oats in Ontario and
previously worked in New Zealand as a malting barley breeder. He has a
BSc and MSc from Montana State University and a PhD from Guelph. He
is secretary of the Ontario Cereal Crop Committee.
Gord Surgeoner is a pest management specialist who is plants program
leader for the University of Guelph and the Ontario Ministry of
Agriculture and Food and Rural Affairs. He is chair of the Ontario
Environmental Farm Coalition, Chairperson of the Board of Directors of
Ontario Agri-Food Technologies, and a member of the National
Environmental Indicators Council of Agriculture Canada.
Harro Wehrmann is an organic cash grain grower and wild boar farmer
from Ripley, Ontario. He runs 250 hectares of crops including spelt,
soybeans, white beans, and winter wheat. He is also a seed distributor
and runs his own export organic grain company. Harro is president of
the Organic Crop Improvement Association of Ontario and is a board
director of REAP-Canada.
Ted Zettel runs a 100 hectare organic dairy and cash grain farm near
Chepstow, Ontario. He has been a spokeperson and an on-farm advisor
with the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario (EFAO) for over ten
years. He has recently worked in Zambia on an international
development project and is a founding member of the OntarBio organic
grain and dairy cooperatives.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Michele Gale-Sinex, communications manager
Center for Integrated Ag Systems
UW-Madison College of Ag and Life Sciences
Voice: (608) 262-8018 FAX: (608) 265-3020
http://www.wisc.edu/cias/
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Salamanders are important. --Mister 3D
To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with "unsubscribe sanet-mg".
To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"subscribe sanet-mg-digest".