Documents and reflects on the steps that researchers are taking to implement social and gender analysis, including questions of class, caste, and ethnicity, into their everyday work. Combines both learning experiences and scientific results, representing academic and nonacademic sectors, a variety of research organizations, and a number of natural resource management questions, including biodiversity conservation, crop and livestock improvement, and sustainable grassland development. The learning studies, from China, India, Mongolia, Nepal, and Viet Nam, illustrate challenges, opportunities, successes, and disappointments, and highlight the different methods used and adapted in the diverse contexts of South and Southeast Asia. Concludes with a comparative analysis of the learning studies, which highlights common issues and challenges.

Agricultural development research aims to generate new knowledge or to retrieve and apply existing forms of knowledge in ways that can be used to improve the welfare of people who are living in poverty or are otherwise excluded, for instance by gender-based discrimination. Its effective application therefore requires ongoing dialogue with and the strong engagement of men and women from poor marginal farming communities. This book discusses opportunities afforded by effective knowledge pathways linking researchers and farmers, underpinned by participatory research and gender analysis. It sets out practices and debates in gender-sensitive participatory research and technology development, concentrating on the empirical issues of implementation, impact assessment, and institutionalisation of approaches for the wider development and research community. It includes six full-length chapters and eight brief practical notes and is enhanced by an annotated resources list of relevant publications, organisations, and websites adding to the portfolio of approaches and tools discussed by the contributors. Most of the 33 contributing authors work in the specialised agencies that form part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). This book was published as a special issue of Development in Practice.

The Green Revolution averted the threat of famine through the rapid adoption of improved rice varieties. However, despite this huge success, hundreds of millions of poor rice-farming families in rainfed areas still live in poverty and suffer from food (rice) insecurity. Despite many released improved rice varieties for rainfed conditions, farmers still use local varieties that can withstand drought and floods but have low yields or they use the same varieties for many years because of a lack of better varieties. Rainfed rice farmers are slow to adopt improved varieties because of several problems. One problem is more of extension than breeding - many farmers, particularly those living in remote rainfed areas, may not have access to or information about the seed of new varieties. Another problem is that variety testing programs are often conducted on-station, which does not represent farmers' fields. Moreover, conventional rice breeding programs usually seek farmers' input only at the very end of the process, when newly released varieties, usually one or two per year, are evaluated in on-farm demonstration trials. Often, in remote and unfavorable areas, subsistence farmers, who comprise the majority of the rural farming population in Asia, give importance to social and cultural dimensions aside from the agronomic performance of the new rice varieties. The complexities of developing acceptable varieties for variable and stressful rainfed environments require that breeders become deeply familiar with men and women farmers' needs and preferences. Since 1977, IRRI has been making efforts to improve communication among farmers, breeders, and extension workers so that men and women farmers' concerns and preferences are considered in plant breeding objectives. Participatory varietal selection (PVS) is a simple way for breeders and agronomists to learn which varieties perform well on-station and on-farm and to obtain feedback from the potential end users in the early phases of the breeding cycle. It is a means for social scientists to identify the varieties that most men and women farmers prefer, including the reasons for their preference and constraints to adoption. Based on IRRI's experience in collaboration with national agricultural research and extension system partners and farmers, PVS, which includes "researcher-managed" and "farmer-managed" trials, is an effective strategy for accelerating the dissemination of stress-tolerant varieties. PVS has also been instrumental in the fast release of stress-tolerant varieties through the formal varietal release system. This guide on PVS will complement the various training programs given by IRRI for plant breeders, agronomists, and extension workers engaged in rice varietal development and dissemination.

Organic Crop Breeding provides readers with a thorough review of the latest efforts by crop breeders and geneticists to develop improved varieties for organic production. The book opens with chapters looking at breeding efforts that focus on specific valuable traits such as quality, pest and disease resistance as well as the impacts improved breeding efforts can have on organic production. The second part of the book is a series of crop specific case studies that look at breeding efforts currently underway from around the world in crops ranging from carrots to corn. Organic Crop Breeding includes chapters from leading researchers in the field and is carefully edited by two pioneers in the field. Organic Crop Breeding provides valuable insight for crop breeders, geneticist, crop science professionals, researchers, and advanced students in this quickly emerging field.