Selection of white winter emmer wheat (Nate Kleinman)

Experimental Farm Network for collaborative plant breeding and sustainable agriculture research. (美国)

描述

The Experimental Farm Network is an online platform facilitating collaborative plant breeding as well as other sustainable agricultural research.

The experimental farm network started when Nate Kleinman and Dusty Hinz saw the threats of climate change, and wanted to have an agriculture able to cope with it. Breeding for crops like trees, or perennial wheat, takes decades and is often part of university programs which phase out with the retirement of the responsible person. These are the reasons which lead the two to build up a decentralized network for plant breeding and other experimental farming techniques.

The network is online based, open source, and with a free access to everyone having an internet connection. In the network, there are two positions for each project: researcher and volunteer. A researcher who wants to start a project describes the goals, the needs from the volunteers, and the required climatic and soil conditions. A volunteer, who has a profile where the growing conditions are described, can sign up for the project. The researcher can then contact the volunteers which seem suitable, and send genetic material. Usually, the work involves planting the seeds, growing it out, measuring some characteristics (size, yield, etc.) and sending a part of the seeds with some data back.

The EFN is organized as a non-profit cooperative with two permanent employees and a board of advisors. The sources of income were initially a crowdsourcing and the sale of seeds. Financially it is not yet totally self-carrying, as the employees are working sometimes for free. With the increase of seed sales, also from experimental and diverse varieties, it is changing.

The website helps putting people in touch and keeping records of who is working on which project, as well as for volunteers to stay updated with the projects. Some projects, with annuals, are only short term, while others, for example with slow growing perennials, may need decades if not more to produce a selected cultivar or variety of a crop.

地点

地点: This is where the non-profit cooperative is registered. Projects take place around the world, in the USA, Canada and Australia so far., 美国

选定地点的地理参考
  • -75.16242, 39.95219

启动日期: 2013

终止年份: 不适用

方法的类型
Seeds of a landrace bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea). It grows well in marginal lands, is therefor of interest for a resilient farming. One of the EFN projects. (Nate Kleinman)
Seedling of monkey puzzle, (Araucaria araucana), a long lived tree which was a staple crop for humans in its South American range. One of the EFN projects. (Nate Kleinman)

方法目标和有利环境

该方法的主要目的/目标
Develop farming systems for a future, while tackling problems with climate change.
推动实施本办法所应用技术的条件
  • 社会/文化/宗教规范和价值观: More and more people are aware of the problems with the narrow genetics of current varieties.
  • 参与者的的协作/协调: It only works as collaborative projects.
  • 了解SLM,获得技术支持: The exchange of the different actors in plant breeding and sustainable farming enables the work of the experimental farm network
  • 工作量、人力资源可用性: Many breeding projects can only be done on huge areas, for example tree breeding. Spreading the workload on many people, all of them having only a limited work, enables to make
阻碍实施本办法所应用技术的条件
  • 参与者的的协作/协调: Some volunteers do not return seeds, it is difficult to get reliable people.

相关利益相关者的参与和角色

该方法涉及的利益相关者及其职责
该方法涉及哪些利益相关者/执行机构? 指定利益相关者 说明利益相关者的角色
当地土地使用者/当地社区 Volunteers Volunteers help researchers with their experiments, for example by looking out for promising wild specimen, by growing out varieties under specific conditions to assess the resistance, by selecting experimental varieties, or by similar work.
社区组织 The non-profit cooperative "Experimental Farm Network" Provides an online platform where researchers and volunteers can meet.
研究人员 Researchers They can find volunteers if more people are needed to carry out an experiment, specially in plant breeding for sustainable farming.
领导机构
The non-profit cooperative "Experimental Farm Network" has the lead, but each researcher leads his or her own project.
当地土地使用者/当地社区参与该方法的不同阶段
被动
外部支持
互动
自我动员
启动/动机
计划
实施
监测/评估
流程图

The Experimental Farm Network is organised as a Non-Profit Cooperative. It consists of a board of directors overseeing the the whole, and of employees. The EFN lives from donations and from the sale of seeds which are cultivated on kindly lent land.

The EFN has a website, experimentalfarmnetwork.org, on which researchers can create an account describe projects for which they want volunteers. Volunteers can also creat an account, on which they describe their soil and climatic conditions. Researchers can then contact volunteers and ask them for help. The work for the volunteer often involves growing recieved seeds and send back records about the growth, and send back seeds to the researcher. The volunteers and researcher can connect trough the website, but some work as well trough other networks like facebook.

作者:Stefan Graf
有关SLM技术选择的决策

决策是由......做出的

  • 仅限土地使用者(自主)
  • 主要是土地使用者,由SLM专家提供支持
  • 所有相关参与者,作为参与式方法的一部分
  • 主要是SLM专家,咨询土地使用者之后
  • 仅限SLM专家
  • 政治家和领袖

决策是基于

  • 对充分记录的SLM知识进行评估(基于证据的决策)
  • 研究结果
  • 个人经验和意见(无记录)

技术支持、能力建设和知识管理

以下活动或服务是该方法的一部分
能力建设/培训
向以下利益相关者提供培训
  • 土地使用者
  • 现场工作人员/顾问
培训形式
  • 在职
  • 农民对农民
  • 示范区域
  • 公开会议
  • 课程
  • Support for the volunteers
涵盖的主题

Depending on the crop grown, the researcher helps with information about how best to grow it.

机构强化
机构已强化/建立
  • 是,少许
  • 是,适度
  • 是,非常
在下述层面上
  • 本地
  • 区域
  • 国家
  • Online
描述机构、角色和职责、成员等.
The online network was established within the approach.
支持类型
  • 财务
  • 能力建设/培训
  • 设备
进一步细节
研究
研究涉及以下主题
  • 社会学
  • 经济/市场营销
  • 生态学
  • 技术

Breeding is always research for better adapted crops or varieties.

融资和外部物质支持

SLM组成部分的年度预算,以美元计算
  • < 2,000
  • 2,000-10,000
  • 10,000-100,000
  • 100,000-1,000,000
  • > 1,000,000
Precise annual budget: 10000.0
Crowdsourcing was used in the beginning, now the sale of seeds is taking over in supporting the cooperative financially.
已向土地使用者提供以下服务或激励
  • 为土地使用者提供财政/物质支援
  • 特定投入的补贴
  • 信用
  • 其它激励或手段
部分融资
充分融资
农业: 种子

Depending on the project, seeds are given and a return of the subsequent generation asked.

土地使用者的劳动力为

影响分析和结论性陈述

方法的影响
是,很少
是,中等
是,支持力度很大
该方法是否有助于当地土地使用者,提高利益相关者的参与度?

该方法是否帮助土地使用者实施和维护SLM技术?

该方法是否建立/加强了机构、利益相关者之间的合作?

该方法是否提高了土地使用者适应气候变化/极端情况和减轻气候相关灾害的能力?

土地使用者实施SLM的主要动机
  • 增加生产
  • 增加利润(能力),提高成本效益比
  • 减少土地退化
  • 降低灾害风险
  • 减少工作量
  • 支付/补贴
  • 规章制度(罚款)/执行
  • 声望、社会压力/社会凝聚
  • 加入运动/项目/团体/网络
  • 环境意识
  • 习俗和信仰,道德
  • 提高SLM知识和技能
  • 美学改进
  • 冲突缓解
方法活动的可持续性
土地使用者能否维持通过该方法实施的措施(无外部支持的情况下)?
  • 不确定

结论和吸取的教训

长处: 土地使用者的观点
  • Allows farmers who are isolated on the countryside to have research projects together with others.
  • Allows a decentralized approach, in which the research can continue even if the initial researcher did not continue.
长处: 编制者或其他关键资源人员的观点
  • The transparency allows other projects to be inspired to do similar breeding projects.
弱点/缺点/风险: 土地使用者的观点如何克服
  • Some volunteers only take the seeds, and do not give back as promised. EFN wants to implement a rating system for volunteers, in a way that researchers can see if they are reliable.
  • Some people do not want to create an account in another social network. They can contact some researchers directly, and work without having an account. This requires more organisational work for the researchers, but is done by some.
弱点/缺点/风险: 编制者或其他关键资源人员的观点如何克服
  • As an english speaking platform, it crosses many countries, while some seed regulation do not allow imports or translocations of genetic material due to the risks of disease transfer. Arrange the platform into countries where adequate.

参考文献

编制者
  • Stefan Graf
Editors
审查者
  • Alexandra Gavilano
实施日期: Nov. 9, 2018
上次更新: Nov. 20, 2018
资源人
WOCAT数据库中的完整描述
链接的SLM数据
文件编制者
机构 项目
主要参考文献
  • Plant Breeding and Farmer Participation, Ceccarelli et al., 2009,ISBN 978-92-5-106382-8: http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/i1070e/i1070e00.htm
链接到网络上可用的相关信息
This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareaAlike 4.0 International