Varietal selection in marginal agroecological niches and cultural landscapes: the case of rice in the Togo Hills

ABSTRACT

The Togo Hills borderland between Ghana and Togo is known for its cultural and ecological diversity and dynamic socio-political history. In this setting, African rice (Oryza glaberrima) is cultivated together with other local cultivars of Asian rice (O. sativa), and smallholders are keen innovators. This article presents the results of participatory variety selection (PVS) trials, in four different cultural and ecological settings within the Togo Hills, designed to understand farmers’ innovation and variety choice. Farmers belonging to different ethnic groups organized their trials and evaluated fourteen farmer varieties from six West-African countries and one Nerica variety. The way the PVS trials took shape and evaluation was conducted reflected the socio-cultural and economic differences between the settings. Despite these differences, farmers showed a broad interest and preference for different varieties based on different criteria, related to agroecological conditions, household consumption needs, market demands and/or ritual purposes. We contend that ― in a period of climate crisis, bio- and agrobiodiversity depletion, rapid social change and market instability ― plant breeding in West Africa must be participatory, decenter from a focus on high external input agriculture and include farmers’ varieties, better contributing to food security, quality, and nutrition, while strengthening agroecological practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Farmers’ experimentation
• participatory crop improvement
• culture and agriculture
• interactions of technology x environment x society
• Oryza species and hybrids

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank all the farmers who agreed to cooperate with this study. Furthermore the authors are grateful to, to Edwin Nuijten, Paul C. Struik, Paul Richards, Harro Maat whose research comments and suggestions much contributed to field research. Furthermore we thank Bosso Kokou, Joshua Amankwah and James Asare for coordination of field research and Pedro Talhinhas for helpful comments to the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Statement

This manuscript has not been previously published and it is not under review for publication elsewhere.

Notes

1. “Local knowledge of crop plants in poverty alleviation: case studies in Ghana, Sierra Leone and The Gambia on the anthropology and biology of African Rice (Oryza glaberrima Steud.)” https://www.nwo.nl/en/projects/w-016522200

2. Only Sassanou was chosen among the Ahlon villages because other villages were less involved in rice farming and in Tinipé no rice was produced.

Additional information

Funding

Fieldwork for this research was funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) through Wageningen University for the project ‘Local knowledge of crop plants in poverty alleviation: case studies in Ghana, Sierra Leone and The Gambia on the anthropology and biology of African Rice (Oryza glaberrima Steud.)‘ (2006: w-016522200 & wav-52-1128). Furthermore this article was partially written within the framework of two projects: Mangroves, mangrove rice and mangrove people funded by the European Union (EU – DeSIRA(FOOD/2019/412-700, DeSIRA_GB)) and the SESYNC-funded pursuit “Diverse Pathways to Nourishment: Understanding How Agricultural Biodiversity Enhances Food Security and Nutrition” and benefited from group discussions conducted at SESYNC head office in 2018 and 2019.