Governance of seed and food security through participatory plant breeding: Empirical evidence and gender analysis from Syria. Natural Resources Forum (NRS), a United Nations Sustainable

Governance of seed and food security through participatory plantbreeding: Empirical evidence and gender analysis from Syria

Alessandra Galiè

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of a study on the governance of seed conducted in the framework of a participatory plantbreeding (PPB) programme, based on a multi-year inquiry with a panel of ten Syrian households. The study assessed theinteractions between governance regimes regulating the rights to access and control genetic resources at international andnational level, compared to the actual ability of the respondent women farmers to access and control the seed of varieties theyco-developed with the PPB programme. The paper argues that gender equal access to seed can “optimally” contribute toenhancing household food security in small scale farming. The paper also argues that to support a gender-equal access toseed in the respondent households legislation needs to explicitly protect the rights of women farmers to access and share thebenefits of genetic material and draw from empirical evidence of the actual access to and control of seed at ground level.

Keywords: Governance; seed; gender; Syria; participatory plant breeding; food security; biodiversity.

1. Background

Biodiversity can be broadly defined as ‘diversity of life onearth’ (The Crucible II Group, 2000). Loss of biodiversity isan increasing concern worldwide (Santarius and Sachs,2007). Loss of biological diversity on farms, specifically interms of increasingly fewer varieties of crops grown byfarmers, is expected to have a strong impact on rurallivelihoods and food security for the world’s poor who relyon biological products for 85-90% of their livelihood needs(The Crucible II Group, 2000).

Decisions about biodiversity management include whocontrols biodiversity and its components,1 for example,who benefits from the revenues generated by its use, andwho decides how to conserve, reproduce and use it.Biodiversity management in agriculture is characterised bythe tensions inherent in protecting the interests of diversestakeholders2 from misappropriation, and especially fromthe assertion of exclusive proprietary rights in geneticresources useful for agriculture, without the consent of

those that develop and preserve the resource, while allowingthe continued exchange of genetic material and theexpression of genotype-environment interactions infarmers’ fields (Rosendal, 2006).

These stakeholders have varying degrees of influence onnegotiations about agricultural biodiversity managementand regulations. Rural women worldwide have been shownto play a special role in preserving and creating knowledgeabout seed (World Bank et al., 2009). Also, women oftenplay key roles as food providers and as preservers offood cultures (Jiggins, 2011). Yet, they are the least able toinfluence the formal negotiations and decisions, includingat international level, concerning the governance of seedand natural resources (Deda and Rubian, 2004).

Because of its importance and complexity, biodiversitymanagement has become a hugely disputed fieldwhere national systems of governance coexist with oftenincompatible international regimes, regulations andagreements each focusing on a particular aspect.Governments are faced with the challenge of addressingnational priorities such as food security, economic growthand sustainable development, while deciding which of theinternational agreements related to the governance of seed,to adopt and how to abide by their contrasting provisionsand rules. Whereas commitments to include genderconcerns in the governance of biodiversity have been madeat the international level, their translation into tangibleactions is still wanting in most jurisdictions (Deda and

Alessandra Galiè undertook the study presented in this paper while aResearch Fellow at the International Centre for Agricultural Research inthe Dry Areas (ICARDA), Syria, and in collaboration with WageningenUniversity (WUR), Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected] For example, genes, seed, plants, parts of plants, micro-organisms andanimals.2 Such as communities, farmers, formal and informal breeders, inventors,commercial enterprises and researchers.

Natural Resources Forum 37 (2013) 31–42

© 2013 The Author. Natural Resources Forum © 2013 United Nations

Rubian, 2004). Syria is a particularly interesting casebecause agriculture is its primary economic activity and theBa’th government made food self-sufficiency a priority inthe 1980s. In 2002, the government adopted and ratified3

Article 14 of the United Nations Convention on theElimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women(CEDAW) which establishes the right of rural womento participate in the elaboration and implementation ofdevelopment planning at all levels, access appropriatetechnologies, information, and rural services and also toobtain formal and informal training to enhance theirtechnical proficiency.4

This paper provides an analysis of seed governancein Syria up to the beginning of 2011, as affected bygovernance regimes from the international to the local level,from a social science and gender perspective. It presentsthe participatory plant breeding (PPB) programme as thebackground against which to analyse the process ofinvolving farmers in shaping seed development and (inpart) the food system at community level. By providingempirical evidence of seed management at the groundlevel, this paper aims to unfold the gender dimensionof both formal and informal seed management, therebycontributing to progress towards more gender-equalinstitutional frameworks.

2. The research context

In PPB, professional plant breeders and researchers fromvarious disciplines collaborate with farmers and otherstakeholders in the food chain to produce locally-adaptedvarieties that meet farmers’ needs, priorities, and marketopportunities (Johnson et al., 2004; Ceccarelli and Grando,2007). The PPB coordinated by the International Centre forAgricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) in Syriastarted in 1995 (Ceccarelli et al., 2012). Up to the presentcivil unrest (2011) it has been a continuing effort involving11 villages spread across Syria. Barley, the main cereal crop(used as feed) in the dry areas, was the initial main targetcrop. Wheat, the main food crop, was added in 2009. In2006 a women pro-active approach — which activelyaddressed women farmers and their needs in order tofacilitate their participation in the PPB activities — wasadopted by the programme to achieve a gender-balancedparticipation of farmers after its gender-neutral approachhad resulted in the involvement of men only. Yet,preliminary field evidence indicated that Syrian womenwere involved in agricultural activities relevant to PPB.

The available data estimate that in Syria about 44% ofthe women in farming households work in agricultureas paid labourers, and most of the remainder contribute

unpaid labour to the family farm (World Bank et al., 2009).There is a marked gender based division of labour andresponsibility, with women concentrated in the manual,time-consuming and labour intensive tasks. Social norms,particularly in the rural areas, generally assign men the roleof breadwinners and discourage women from engaging inincome-generating activities, frequenting public spaces orinteracting with men outside their family (Galiè et al.,2012). Women’s control over assets in Syria is severelyrestricted. Women own less than 5% of the land; only 7%own animals, and about 16% own some form of agriculturalequipment or machinery. Male migration to urban areas issaid to be causing a feminisation of agricultural labour andhas increased the proportion of women among the farmingpopulation, most often without increasing their control offarm assets and decision-making (Abdelali-Martini et al.,2003). While the access of women to education, health anddecision-making positions has improved over the last years,Personal Status Laws and the Penal Code prevent womenfrom enjoying equal rights to men (European Commission,2010).

3. Conceptual framework

3.1. Food security and seed

This paper adopted food security5 as a main frameof reference because it is central in current debateson pro-poor development, in the approach of the SyrianGovernment to agricultural development, and inagricultural research for development. This paper associatesfood security in turn with two food-related rights: the “rightto food” and “food sovereignty”. The right to food is,according to the United Nations, “the right to have regular,permanent and unrestricted access, either directly or bymeans of financial purchases, to quantitatively andqualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding tothe cultural traditions of the people to which the consumerbelongs, and which ensure a physical and mental, individualand collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear” (DeSchutter, 2012). The United Nations envisions governmentsplaying a central role in respecting and protectingindividuals’ right to food and actively intervening to fulfilthis right. The right to food is part of the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights of 1948 and of other globalconventions and declarations.

La Via Campesina (2001) articulated the concept of“food sovereignty” as peoples’, countries’ or states’ right todefine their own food systems and agricultural policy. Foodsovereignty places at the forefront of discussion the need fordemocratic forms of agro-food governance and for people

3 With reservations applied to Articles 2, 9(2), 15(4), 16(1)(2), and 29(1).4 http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/text/econvention.htm#article14.

5 Food security at household level can be defined as the ability ofhouseholds to secure adequate food at all times to meet dietaryrequirements of their members (Negash and Niehof, 2004).

32 Alessandra Galiè / Natural Resources Forum 37 (2013) 31–42


to define their own institutional arrangements for regulatingthe food system. Full realisation of food sovereignty startsfrom control over genetic resources and is predicated on theattainment of “seed sovereignty”, that is, the control of seedproduction and use. This paper looks at seed as a key to foodsecurity because seed is the first link in the food value chain.It provides food crops as well as plants and trees that areused as animal feed or feedstock for industries. Seedprovides also a means to acquire food through seed sales orexchange (World Bank et al., 2009).

3.2. Food security and governance

In 1998, Kofi Annan6 stated that good governance isthe most important factor in eradicating poverty andfood insecurity (World Bank, 2007). The United NationsRapporteur on the Right to Food maintains: “Hunger is nota fatality. It is a result of policies that could have beendifferent, and that would not have been allowed to standif their impacts had been monitored more carefully inthe past” (De Schutter, 2009:2). From this perspective,reducing hunger is not only a matter of improving cropproduction but also of distributing the resources equitably.Such grand statements and assertions, to have effect on therealities “on the ground”, always need to be translated intospecific actions; the PPB programme in Syria might beviewed as one such “act of translation”.

3.3. Governance

This can be defined as the “purposive practice of governingby multiple actors that operate at multiple scales ofdecision-making in pursuit of a broad goal” (Paavola andGouldson, 2009:149). Governance frameworks are specificand formalised governance interventions developed inpursuit of a goal (i.e., policies, laws, directives,conventions, etc.; Paavola and Gouldson, 2009). A broaderconceptualisation of governance is based on the belief thathumans and organisations govern their behaviour affectedby a range of formal and informal rules,7 and mental modelsincluding social expectations and cultural norms8 thathumans use to organise all forms of repetitive andstructured interactions (Rhodes, 1996). These rules, or theirabsence, affect how individuals face any given situation,enjoy or are excluded from accessing information andbenefits (Ostrom, 2005). Paavola and Gouldson (2009)argue for an analysis of governance “regimes” that includecustoms, norms, rules and also governance frameworks thatshape how an actor or an activity are governed in aparticular context. This paper focuses on seed regimes

by analysing the intersections between seed governanceframeworks and the informal rules regulating seedmanagement at community and intra-household level.

3.4. Seed governance

The concept of seed governance was used in the studyreported here to operationalise food-related rights in thefarm reality. Seed governance is defined in this paper as theformal and informal rules and behaviours that affect rights,access to and control of seed at the international, national,local and individual levels. Ribot and Peluso (2003)distinguish between access and property by defining accessas the “ability to derive benefits from things” (e.g., naturalresources) and property as “the right to benefit fromthings”. They argue that access is affected by a range offactors such as institutions, social and political relations anddiscursive strategies that shape benefit flows of whichproperty is one factor only (Ribot and Peluso, 2003). Accessin turn, differs from control in that the latter implies someform of decision-making over objects or resources (Valdiviaand Gilles, 2001). Ostrom (2010) recommends engaging inempirical work to better fit institutional rules to specificsocio-ecological settings and enhance innovativeness andcooperation for effective and equitable outcomes. Thispaper reports an empirical assessment of the intersectionbetween formal and informal rights to seed and actualaccess to and control of PPB seed by the respondents.

3.5. Gender

Gender relationships affect women and men’s rights, accessto and control of agricultural resources, and how they canbenefit from technology development and resourcemanagement (Brewster, 2004). Generally, although womenare often heavily involved in the use of agriculturalresources, they are excluded from management decision-making processes from those regarding their managementof the household to those at the highest levels ofpolicymaking (Brody, 2009). Yet seed governance debatesoften are assumed to be neutral with respect to gender(UNDP, 2000). Bringing a gender dimension to seedgovernance implies, according to Brody (2009), bothinvolving women and the most marginal groups in decision-making processes and ensuring that governance regimestake into account the different responsibilities, prioritiesand needs of men and women. Gender-sensitive seedgovernance is believed to enhance women’s seedsovereignty, that is their ability to access and control seed inways commensurate with their roles as food providers,producers and preservers of food cultures (World Banket al., 2009).

This paper discusses how seed governance frameworksmight interface with the actual access and control farmwomen might have to the PPB seed they co-developed,based on the evidence from a multi-year enquiry with a

6 Then Secretary-General of the United Nations.7 “Rules” are defined by Ostrom as “shared understandings by participantsabout enforced prescriptions concerning what actions [. . .] are required,prohibited, or permitted” (Ostrom 2005:18).8 “Norms” are understood by Ostrom to be “cultural prescriptions” or “thegenerally accepted moral fabric of a community” (Ostrom 2005:17).

33Alessandra Galiè / Natural Resources Forum 37 (2013) 31–42


panel drawn from ten Syrian households, within theframework of gender equity and food security.

Figure 1 is a heuristic device that serves to illustrate theinter-linkage of the conceptual language used in this paperand how it has been operationalised.

4. Methodology

Anderson and Scott (2012) argue that qualitative, small-Nresearch (Mahoney and Goertz, 2006) can supportpolicymakers to address growing social inequality byproviding “thick descriptions”9 of complex problems, andinsights on the factors that shape these problems atthe macro and meso levels of political economy andinstitutions, and at the micro level of race, class and gender.This study was designed as a qualitative, small-N analysisof seed governance in ten PPB households. The analysis ofseed governance regimes affecting the access of therespondent Syrian farmers to PPB seed took place betweenthe beginning of 2006 and the beginning of 2011 andcomprised two main parts: a review of seed governanceframeworks at international and national levels; andempirical analysis of seed governance at ground level. Thereview of seed governance at international and national

levels used systems evaluation (Williams and Imam, 2007)applied to the desk study of key documents and was carriedout between 2007 and the beginning of 2011.

The empirical work involved in-depth fieldwork with apanel of 12 women from ten households in three Syrianvillages (see Figure 2), who were selected purposivelyfollowing a diagnostic study (Galiè, 2013a). These threevillages were thought to offer contrasting settings in termsof a continuum of household participation in the PPBactivity. Ajaz was chosen after the male farmers from thevillage had expressed interest in the PPB programme butcollaboration had never started for logistical reasons. Anadditional number of women (maximum five at any time, ineach village) regularly joined in the research meetings andcontributed to the discussion. In addition, in 2009, a maleMA student carried out seven semi-structured interviewswith 24 men from the three villages in order to exploremen’s opinion of the intra-household division of labour inagriculture and their understanding of women’s role inagronomic management (see Figure 2).

The empirical analysis of seed management at groundlevel was based on direct observation and participatoryassessment, both of (a) the management of seed athousehold level and its changes consequent to theinvolvement of the women farmers in the PPB programmeand (b) the interaction between the international andnational legal frameworks, and customary rules operating atground level. During three stages of fieldwork (2007-2008,2009 and 2010) the following methods were employed inwomen-only meetings:

9 Thick description refers to the researcher’s task of describing and alsointerpreting an observed social action or behaviour within its context(Ponterotto, 2006).

Figure 1. Overarching concepts and frame of reference.Source: Author’s elaboration.



(a) daily and seasonal calendars (Chambers, 1983) wereused to assess men’s and women’s involvementin farming, across changing seasons and sites ofproduction;

(b) semi-structured interviews were used in all threefieldwork stages (2007-2008, 2009 and 2010) toexplore household management of seed (handling,storing, selecting, selling and buying) and women’saccess to seed; and

(c) women’s perception of household decision-makingdynamics related to seed management was assessedthrough matrix analysis (Miles and Huberman, 1994),matching women’s daily activities and their power tomake decisions about their activities.

Participant observation during PPB activities such asplanting and variety selection took place over four croppingseasons (2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010).

The fieldwork interviews and the written exercises werewritten up, transcribed in digital format and verified byone female fieldwork assistant and the respondents. Thesoftware package Atlas.ti (Bonn, Development GmbH) wasused to organise, code, aggregate and disaggregate both thewritten and visual material, compare changes in women’sperception of seed management over the years andtriangulate the findings. The findings were further analyseddescriptively and qualitatively (Patton, 1980) using a varietyof methods.

5. International legislation

This section briefly reviews the main internationalgovernance frameworks regulating seed systems and theirimplications for countries such as Syria. Under theemerging regime, farmers’ rights to seed and geneticmaterial increasingly have been weakened by theapplication of intellectual property rights, designed forother purposes, to biological materials (Tansey and Rajotte,2008). For instance, the International Convention for theProtection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV, 1991)safeguards formal breeders’ rights by forbidding States togrant farmers the right to the exchange or sale of protectedvarieties (that can only be used for non-commercialpurposes). Syria has not acceded to UPOV. The Agreementon Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights(TRIPS), which came into force in 1995 within theframework of the World Trade Organisation (WTO),establishes a global regime for intellectual property rightsthat does not recognise the principle of national sovereigntyover genetic resources and establishes that farmers whocultivate patented seed do not have the right to save, re-sowor exchange the seed (De Schutter, 2012). Syria applied forWTO membership in 2001 and in 2010 it won observerstatus, the first step to joining the WTO.

Both the TRIPS and UPOV regulations raise a numberof issues, including: the collection of seeds fromfarmers’ fields without compensation, for the purposes of

Figure 2. Characterisation of the three villages of this study with overview of respondents.Source: Local extension offices in, respectively, Idleb, Souran and Lahetha.



commercial seed development; the undermining of thehistoric value of genetic resources as a ‘global public good’;the erosion of diversity by the expansion of commercialseed use; and the sharing of the benefits of public researchand technology development. This last issue has risenhigher on the policy agenda in parallel with the increase inpatenting and other forms of exclusive proprietaryprotection of varieties (Li et al., 2012).

In contrast, a number of international conventions —such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) andthe International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources forFood and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) — seek to protect therights of farmers to natural and agricultural resources andseed in particular. The CBD came into force in 1993(Convention on Biological Diversity, 1993) to enhanceconservation measures. It recognises the principle ofnational sovereignty over the regulation of the use ofgenetic resources. It requires that access to resources restson the consent of those affected and that farmers have theright to equal access to any new benefits derived from theresources. It recommends that particular attention be givento the protection of the resources and rights of indigenousgroups and women. Syria ratified the CBD in February1995.

The ITPGRFA came into force in 2004, supported by theUN Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UnitedNations (FAO). It aims to secure access for plant breeding toseeds from a specified list of the most central food plants,and to protect farmers’ rights to seed (Rosendal, 2006).Article 9 recognises the role of local and indigenouscommunities and farmers in the conservation anddevelopment of plant genetic resources. Syria signed theTreaty in June 2002 and ratified it in August 2003.

6. Syrian national legislation10

In Syria, the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform(MAAR) oversees agricultural development. The SupremeCouncil of Sciences is in charge of implementing nationalscientific research policy. Agricultural research is managedby the General Commission for Scientific AgriculturalResearch (GCSAR), the national institute for breeding inSyria. The General Organisation for Seed Multiplication(GOSM) is tasked with seed production and supply ofstrategically important crops (wheat, barley, potato andcotton) and quality control. At present no independent seedcertification agency exists. The variety release system is notformally organised and works on an ad hoc basis. TheGCSAR is responsible for variety evaluation. Promisinglines are tested in on-farm field trials before they areproposed for release to the National Variety ReleaseCommittee. The Agricultural Credit Bank is responsible for

the supply and sale of seed for all major food and foddercrops; the private sector is involved mainly in the sale offertilisers, herbicides and pesticides.

The MAAR and the Supreme Agricultural Council(SAC) are in charge of preparing yearly production plansfor the agricultural sector that are used for issuing farmerswith licences (with which they are legally bound to comply)to plant specific crops in specific areas. Through thislicence, farmers can obtain government-supplied credit,inputs and services. The government sets prices for cropsthat are considered “strategic” (i.e., wheat, barley, lentils,chickpeas, cotton, sugar and tobacco) at which governmentestablishments will purchase from farmers or theircooperatives. The Agricultural Extension Department (partof the MAAR) is in charge of “technology transfer” fromthe research institutes to the farmers. Their offices arelocated in the districts, but their services do not reach mostfarmers. The bulk of the seed reaches farmers through theinformal, farmer-to-farmer seed exchange system (Bishaw,2004).

In 2004, no laws, rules and regulations related to varietiesand seed existed in Syria (Bishaw, 2004). The onlylegislation on the subject of seed remains a MinisterialDecree that dates from 1975 and that does not contain anyrestriction on the movement of seed. With the assistance ofthe FAO a draft law on the exchange of plant geneticresources has been formulated (FAO, 2002) in conformitywith the provisions of the ITPGRFA. National sovereigntyremains the basic principle regulating access to Syriangenetic resources. The draft law further recognises the rightof farmers and local communities to participate in nationaldecision-making about the conservation and use of plantgenetic resources and related benefit sharing. Farmers andlocal communities are to be consulted also, before access isgranted for collecting in situ plant genetic resources (FAO,2002). No further progress has been made and the draft lawremains in limbo (pers. comm., FAO representative, 2009).

7. Seed management in the PPB households

The PPB farmers chose what crops to grow based onnumerous considerations. These included location,availability of irrigation water, rainfall predictions, price ofseed at the time of the planting, fuel prices, availability ofmachinery in the area, availability of labour in thehousehold, the expected market demand of the crop and itsexpected sale price. Male government agents were in chargeof providing the seed of the strategic crops and buying theharvest. They dealt only with the head of the household; inmost cases this was a man. Because the women in the studywere in charge of manual work (see below) they preferredcrops that were less labour intensive and crops for whichmechanised harvesting was available.

In Ajaz, the main cultivated crops were rain-fed wheatand barley as well as vegetables for household consumption

10 The information in this section is based on the situation up to beginningof 2011 and the outbreak of widespread civil disorder.



and marketing. All the respondent women were in charge ofmanual activities on-farm (i.e., planting, hoeing, fertilising,weeding, harvesting and processing vegetables; livestockcare; hand-harvest of lentils, chickpea, black-cumin andolives). Young women performed similar activities off-farmalso. The older women (above 60 years) and women headsof household sold seed and straw from the house.Mechanised activities were performed by hired labour or bythe menfolk, in the few cases where they possessed atractor. The five women respondents declared that they allselected plants in the field and retained planting seed forcrops such as barley, wheat, and vegetables (such asaubergines and peppers), and that the men and the womenheads of household bought seedlings of other crops such astomatoes, beans and okra. Selection of wheat and barleyseeds was limited to keeping part of the harvest aside in aspecial part of the granary. Selection of vegetable seeds wascarried out mainly by the older women, by identifying theplants in the field that bore many fruits, letting them dry andthen harvesting the seed and storing it in a dry place. Part ofthe annual seed store was regularly exchanged by the olderwomen and men with their neighbours, and by men withmen in other villages, in order to maintain or improvequality. The women argued they also exchanged seed to‘adjust’ their crops with (preferably female) neighbours, soas to fit their specific needs and preferences. For example, inthe case of wheat in one household in Ajaz the womenmixed white and red seed kernels since the latter gave agood taste to the flour and the former a good yield. Inanother household in Ajaz, the women looked for the seedof soft lentils to add to their more productive varieties.

A new variety might be purchased only if a neighbour ora family member farming in similar agro-ecologicalconditions recommended it, or if the farmers could observethe variety’s performance in the field. The varieties of thecrops cultivated for marketing purposes were selectedgenerally by the men mainly based on yield potential andcustomer demands. The choice of a variety for householdconsumption was made mainly by women, based on tasteand cooking qualities. The household’s need for cash andmarket demand also were considered: “if we have money tobuy seed we look for the best crops” (Female farmer, Ajaz,20 March 2008).

It was by sourcing seed through neighbours that womenfarmers, in particular, gained access to new information oncultivation techniques, one woman from Ajaz argued. Seedpurchased elsewhere did not provide this opportunity, atleast not for the women. Another woman from Ajazstressed that while all commercial seed sellers providedinformation about the varieties, since only men purchasedthe seed, only they learned about the new seeds. Thewomen, particularly the young ones, said they learned howto improve their agronomic practices mainly throughexperience, a process greatly under-valued by the malefarmers. For instance, one male farmer from Ajaz arguedstrongly that: “Men have more knowledge than women and

argue better. Women have no knowledge and they are notexperts. We men meet up and talk about the seed. We cango to other villages and see the fields. Women can’t.Women don’t know prices. Women only talk about clothesand make-up. They have no idea about seed” (Male farmer,Ajaz, 20 January 2009).

In Souran, barley and pistachios were the main cropscultivated for market purposes, together with vegetablesand legumes cultivated for home consumption. No man wasinvolved in farming in the respondent household and thetwo respondent women were in charge of the farm. Theolder woman (60-63 years), a widow, was a full-timefarmer, assisted by her daughter (25-27 years) in all manualactivities on-farm (i.e., planting, hoeing, fertilising,weeding, harvesting and processing vegetables; livestockcare; seed selection; hand-harvest of lentils, chickpea,black-cumin, olives, pistachios and cotton). Mechanisedactivities were arranged with the menfolk and performed byhired labour. Since their involvement with the PPB in 1996they had acquired new barley seeds from the programme.The two women declared that they usually replanted theirown vegetable seed that they retained from the previousyear’s harvest. Their selection of vegetable seed wasorganised either by separating the area planted for crops thatwere to be consumed from the area for seed collection, or byplanting one field only and selecting by observation the seedof the best plants. They considered the best vegetable plantsto be those with: the highest number of fruits, the bestresistance to pests and drought, and the best taste andcooking qualities. The older woman regularly exchangedseed with neighbours to refresh, maintain or increase theiryields. If they needed to purchase seed it was the olderwoman who told her son what variety to buy. The olderwoman also sold both barley seed and straw directlyfrom the house, a practice allowed because at her age, thewomen said, interaction with male strangers, if needed,was permitted. Although she reiterated over numerousinterviews that all the important decisions were taken byher sons, it was observed that this woman in practice hadconsiderable decision-making power. Written exercisescarried out with her daughter also suggested that her motherwas the main decision-maker with respect to seed, farming,and food management (Galiè, 2013b).

In the village of Lahetha, the farmers grew mainly barleythat in case of a successful harvest could be sold as grain orstraw, and some vegetables for household consumption only.Wheat was desired for local dishes but this crop was less andless frequently cultivated because successive harvests hadfailed over the last decade because of recurrent droughts.Two of the women respondents (aged between 50 and 65years) were involved in agriculture together with theirhusbands, with the responsibility to hand harvest and sellbarley. Planting was mechanised and performed by hiredlabour. The women were also in charge of vegetableproduction (in the home garden) and processing, and seedselection. Three widows (55-60 years) did most of the farm



work themselves, with the help of their children or hiredlabour when needed. The seed of barley or wheat waspreserved from harvest time to the next season or sourcedthrough neighbours, farmers from other villages orsometimes from the district extension office, by both menand women, and by women only in female headedhouseholds. Seed was exchanged with other farmers toimprove quality. Seed selection and conservation was carriedout during harvest time by the women, who selected the bestplants, cleaned the seed and preserved it in a dry place. Thewomen considered the best barley plants to have long spikes,long stems, numerous and big spikelets, a gold colour and ahealthy appearance. In the case of wheat, it was the men whoselected seed on the basis of yield, while women alsoconsidered taste, fitness of the grain for the preparation oflocal dishes, and the quality of straw for use in handicrafts. Inmale-headed households, seeds were purchased by bothwomen and men, based on a joint decision.

In all three villages, revenues from seed sales and otheragricultural products were spent on family needs regardlessof who contributed to the work, and after consultationamong family members. The women argued that the finaldecision about expenditures remained always with theirmen folk (Galiè, 2013b). Revenues from off-farm workwere controlled by the labourers themselves, whetherfemale or male. In Ajaz, the respondents stated, womenin some households were given in addition a small pieceof land to manage independently, in return for theiragricultural work in the family’s fields, and they wereallowed to keep the revenues from any crop or seed salesfrom this land.

8. The experience of the PPB programme

In Souran, the two women cultivated the PPB trials in 2007,2008 and 2009 and sent a brother to represent them at thePPB meetings organised for variety selection. In 2010 bothwomen took part in the variety selection meeting for thefirst time, after the presence of a female researcher fromICARDA was guaranteed and the meeting was organised intheir house.

In 2008, these women argued that the sale of PPB seed hadcontributed substantially (adding 50-70% by value)to their family economy because they had establishedthemselves as a reliable provider of good PPB barley seedand because PPB varieties sold for a better price than othervarieties. The women noted that the demand in 2008 for PPBseed had exceeded the amount of seed they had available forsale. However, at planting time in the same year, aneighbouring farmer tasked by the PPB programme todeliver the PPB seed to the farmers in the village had giventhem a bag containing mixed black and white seed ratherthan the PPB line they had asked for.This incident drasticallyreduced their seed sales in 2009; they used most of the seedas feed. The women further indicated that their preferred

crop was barley, even though wheat fetched a better unitprice, because barley responded well to their agro-ecologicalconditions and it was in great demand in the area.

When asked whether the PPB programme had changedwomen’s access to seed the young woman from Souranargued that the PPB programme had provided good well-adapted varieties for their field, thus allowing herself andher mother to select the varieties that best responded to theirhousehold’s needs. She added that women in the villageotherwise did not have direct access to or knowledge of thevarieties available, and thus could not select the ones suitedto household needs, because their male relatives, who wereinterested mainly in yield, were in charge of seed purchasesand they learned about what was available or new varietieswhen buying seed from the commercial sellers.

In the village of Lahetha, the five respondent womenargued in 2010 that through the PPB programme they hadlearned about crop varieties different to those they usuallyplanted and had been given the opportunity to select thosethat better suited their environment and needs: “Before thePPB programme we did not know about the existence ofother varieties. We planted what seed was available andhoped it would work out. Now we know we can choose thevarieties we need and that some varieties are better forour environment” (Female farmer, Lahetha, 2 June 2010).During seed selection sessions in 2010 the women asked theprogramme to provide wheat varieties similar to the localvariety Hourani that they used to cultivate, but that hadbecome difficult to find. Hourani flour was considered bestfor bread-making and the flour available in the market wasnot considered suitable for this purpose. Targeted selectionof PPB lines by the breeders, when organised together withwomen farmers, revealed women’s interest also in wheatstraw traits suited to the use of the straw in handicrafts.These traits and crop priorities subsequently were includedin the PPB programme.

In the first year of the women’s participation in theprogramme in Lahetha, the PPB male farmers and theICARDA facilitator declared the fields usually cultivated bythe women to be unsuitable for varietal trials because theywere too stony and too small and decided to assign land fora collective ‘women’s trial’ planted on the field of a malefarmer. The women complained repeatedly about thisarrangement, particularly when a few months later this fieldwas accidentally ploughed and they lost their harvest. Intheir second year of participation, it was decided that twoof the women should host the trials on behalf of allthe participating women, using family land. When theextension agent involved in the PPB programme distributedthe seed given in compensation for the use of the farm landin PPB trials, the women were given a smaller share than thetwo men who also hosted trials in the village. The activeinvolvement of ICARDA staff was needed to rectify thedistribution. In the third year, two other women wereassigned as hosts for the trials but, at the time of planting,the trials were moved to the fields of two neighbouring male



farmers. The women were told about this decision by themale participants after planting had been completed. A fewmonths later, during a meeting organised by the programmewith the PPB farmers, the women complained loudly abouttheir only nominal participation in PPB and their exclusionfrom decision-making processes. In reaction, a maleextension agent present at the meeting, threatened tosubstitute other (more compliant) women. A few days later,the extension agent even forbade the women to talk directlyto the ICARDA staff. Only a strong intervention byICARDA programme managers re-established the rightof women to fully participate in PPB activities along withthe men — and their right to host trials, in particular.Communication was re-established between the womendirectly with the ICARDA staff. On a number of occasionsin 2009 and 2010, the women reiterated that some of theparticipating men remained unhappy about the involvementof women in PPB because they thought that the womenwould compete in their access to ICARDA seed (as the PPBinvolves directly only a limited number of farmers, betweenfive and ten in each village) as trial hosts or evaluators.

In 2008, the activities of the PPB programme had to bedown-scaled when the General Commission for ScientificAgricultural Research (GCSAR) referred to the existenceof a national law that was said to forbid the exchange inSyria of varieties that had not been officially released. ThePPB varieties had begun circulating through farmer-to-farmer exchange and informal sales throughout the drierareas of Syria but had not been submitted to the officialapproval and release procedure. In only three cases had thevarieties been submitted but they were consideredunsuitable for release because they did not perform as wellas the controls in the agriculturally most favourable testingsites (ICARDA Annual Report, 2006). However, by thenthey had been widely adopted in the areas where theyshowed superior performance.11 The ability of farmers tobenefit from PPB varieties became uncertain. Even thoughno practical measures were taken by the government toprevent farmers from selling PPB seed the farmers feltvulnerable to potential intervention by the government. Thetext of the law cited by the GCSAR was not made available;it would seem to contradict Syria’s obligations alreadysecured by its ratification of the CBD and the ITPGRFA.Collaboration between the extension service and the PPBprogramme officially was scaled down even though itcontinued in practice.

The findings show that overall the respondent womenplayed important roles in crop management along the foodchain. Yet they (and particularly the younger ones) hadlimited access to seed, information, markets and decision-making power regarding crop management and revenues.When involved in the PPB programme the women had

access to seed varieties and information relevant to theirneeds, to decision-making about variety improvement and,in one case, to income generating activities. However,women’s access to PPB seed was often hindered by PPBmale farmers from the community, and so was women’sability to host trials and participate in decision-makingprocesses. Women’s claims to a gender-equal participationencountered the active opposition of an extension agent.

9. Analysis and discussion

The right to food emphasises the right to access — regularlyand permanently, qualitatively and quantitatively —adequate food or the means to purchase it. The seedsovereignty framework argues that farmers need to beempowered to participate in shaping the food system alongthe entire value chain (La Via Campesina, 2001). TheGlobal Gender and Climate Alliance (GGCA), whichmonitors and supports the implementation of the CEDAW,maintains: “Women are the main food producers in farmhouseholds, and so their seed security — in other words,their access to reliable supplies of good seed — is of thehighest priority” (World Bank et al., 2009:545).

Instrumentally, in Syria, PPB has been demonstrated aseffective strategy for involving both women and men farmersin seed improvement and providing them with the PPB seedand associated information. This enhances both farmers’access to and control of seed varieties. By addressing theinterests that the women farmers expressed, for seed withparticular cooking and stem qualities — as in the case ofwheat (a crop used for food) — and by providing them withgood seed that they could sell — as in the case of both wheatand barley (the latter used as feed) — the PPB programmeimproved women’s control of and access to appropriate foodand the means to purchase it, and thereby augmented theirright to food. Moreover, by providing the participating farmwomen with opportunities to participate in decision-makingregarding variety development, and with access to relevantseed and information, the programme constituted animportant step forward in enhancing their seed sovereigntyand thereby in achieving a range of food-related rights(Valdivia and Gilles, 2001; Deda and Rubian, 2004). Theprogramme thus fulfilled many of the expectations of theCBD and ITPGRFA, which Syria has ratified, albeit in thisfirst instance only for a limited number of women. Theprogramme also has shown the value of granting farmers aright to genetic material for the food security of the selectedhouseholds.

On the basis of these findings, it is possible to interpolatethe “proof of principle”12 into the larger setting, to ask whatmight be the best options for the government of Syria

11 In other words, although the PPB varieties performed better than thecontrols in extreme conditions they did not perform so well in thefavourable environments used in the official variety release trials.

12 That is, this research proves that it is possible to enhance women’sfood-related rights through PPB in the studied contexts. Thisunderstanding can be useful in other contexts where, however, its validityneeds to be assessed.



to support farmers and achieve food security throughimproved seed governance while enhancing social andgender equity? The options, this paper suggests, wouldinclude the following:

1. A PPB variety release system, and a variety releasesystem in general (Bishaw and Turner, 2008);

2. Seed delivery systems appropriate for small farmers inthe less favourable environments (Bishaw and Turner,2008);

3. Access and benefit sharing arrangements for geneticmaterial of agricultural interest, that is produced inparticipatory processes (Salazar et al., 2006); and

4. Access and benefit sharing arrangements forbiodiversity management in agriculture (CBD, 1993).

The findings indicate that the PPB programme experienceddifficulties in relation to farmer-approved varieties that arenot officially released by the government. This limits thebenefits that farmers can enjoy from PPB and affectsparticularly the access of women farmers, especially theyounger ones among them who have the most limitedaccess to both the formal and informal seed systems, toappropriate seed and information. Because the existingformal release system is not able to integrate the farmers’trait preferences and selection criteria (Ceccarelli andGrando, 2007) the Syrian government might considercreating an alternative release system for PPB varieties(Bishaw and Turner, 2008). It might be further argued thatcreating an alternative release system based on farmers’preferences would be particularly important for producingseed adequate for women farmers whose trait preferences,which are related to post-harvest activities also, are notusually among the selection priorities of breeders. This iskey to enhancing the seed sovereignty of women farmersand to contributing to their households’ food security.

Bishaw and Turner (2008) recommend the creation ofenabling policy and regulatory environments to activelysupport the informal system. The findings of our study showthat in the respondent households women mainly sourcedand sold their seed through the informal seed system andthrough other female farmers.13 Therefore, our studysuggests that the government of Syria might considersupporting the informal system as a key strategy toguarantee women’s regular and permanent access to goodseed. Moreover, because the findings show that seedexchange in the respondent households moves along genderlines, further study of the potential effects of supplyingwomen farmers’ networks with good seed might open up ameans to reach more women farmers and build an

operational understanding of a network where womenmight be the key seed disseminators.

International experience of the negative effects ofinappropriate IPRs suggests that, in addition, a lawregulating the rights of farmers who participate in formalplant breeding might be recommended. Salazar et al. (2006)argue for the recognition of collective innovation to ensurethat farmers will have continued access to germplasm andthe right in law to share the derived benefits. However, asargued by Paavola and Gouldson (2009), the governance ofresources is affected by formalised frameworks andinformal rules. The findings of our study show that theenjoyment of the PPB benefits by the women respondentswas undermined by customary discriminatory practices thataffected their participation in PPB activities, the sharing ofPPB seed and even the acknowledgement of who ownsgood fields. These circumstances affected negatively thepotential of the PPB programme in providing relevantvarieties and information to women and their ability tobenefit from the programme. Therefore, the Government ofSyria might consider formulating legislation that guaranteesthe rights of farmers to the genetic material produced inparticipatory programmes, with an explicit promotion ofthe rights of women. Such legislation would counterbalancethe informal gender discrimination that affects the right toseed at community and household levels and provide a legalframework for women to effectively claim their rights.14

Ribot and Peluso (2003) argue that the right to benefitfrom resources, however, does not always translate into theactual ability to access the benefits. The findings show howgender, age, status and other social determinants affectedthe ability of different women to claim their access andcontrol over PPB seed. Whether, how and for which womenand men the legal right to genetic material might translateinto actual access and control would need to be empiricallyassessed if the legislation were to provide an effectivegovernance framework for a gender-equal sharing of thebenefits of PPB varieties (Ostrom, 2010).

This paper further argues that the explicit protection ofwomen’s right to access and benefit from genetic materialmight need to be adopted into legislation regulating allbiodiversity management in Syria. The internationalagreements that recognise the role of women in biodiversityconservation limit themselves to recommending that thestates include a gender-sensitive dimension in theirpolicies.15 The new seed law that the Syrian Ministry ofAgriculture and Agrarian Reform is drafting is based on theITPGRFA and therefore should protect the rights of

13 This supports recent evidence (World Bank et al., 2009) underlininghow for resource-poor farmers, and women in particular, local seedsystems are still the main and most reliable source of seed, notwithstandingthe earlier successes of the Green Revolution.

14 The impact of the PPB programme on the empowerment of therespondent women vis-à-vis enabling governance frameworks has beendiscussed in a separate paper (Galiè, 2013b).15 As a matter of fact, the CBD calls for governments to draft national lawsand strategies to ensure the full participation of women at all levels ofpolicymaking and implementation for biological diversity andconservation but does not set mechanisms or binding agreements toguarantee women’s inclusion.



farmers. In order to progress towards the achievement offood security and the enhancement of gender-equal accessto food the draft law would need to explicitly protectwomen’s right to access and share the benefit of geneticmaterial. Syrian women generally lack ownership rights(UNDP, 2006) and in practice, as this study illustrates,diverse socio-cultural factors affect the respondentwomen’s seed access and control. The findings furtherindicate that it was only the insistence by the programme’smanagers that kept open the possibility of a more equalsharing of the benefits, in the case of PPB households inSouran and Lahetha. This suggests that local norms andvalues will continue to govern gender relationships and seedflows in the absence of committed “outsiders”. Thus, itwould be easy to make women’s rights “disappear” ifbiodiversity and seed law were to be framed in terms only ofofficial land title-holders.

10. Conclusions

The findings of this study show that the respondent womenand particularly the younger ones, generally had limitedaccess to new seed varieties and information; limiteddecision-making authority related to seed purchase; andonly modest control of crop-based agricultural revenues.The PPB programme was able to provide access to seedthat was appropriate for both female and male farmersparticipating in the programme and to new information.Because of gender-discrimination at village and householdlevel, the respondent women farmers faced difficulties inparticipating in the programme in terms equal to the malefarmers and in accessing the seed they co-developed underthe programme.

Syria had begun the process of developing a nationallaw for the governance of its natural and agriculturalbiodiversity based on the ITPGRFA. This paper argues thata gender perspective would need to be incorporated in theemergent seed regime in ways that enshrined both women’sand men’s rights. Further, support of the informal seedsystem, on which women mostly rely to source their seed, ascomplementary to the emergent formal system might be aneffective strategy for providing a greater number of womenfarmers with good seed. The potential of such a strategywould need to be assessed empirically.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the continuoussupport of her supervisors Prof. Janice Jiggins, Prof. PaulStruik, Dr. Stefania Grando and Prof. Salvatore Ceccarelli.She would also like to thank the ICARDA team for theirsupport and Micheal Micheal and Kasem Al-Ahmad inparticular. She would like to thank Justin Rhodes for hiscontribution to exploring the views of the respondent men

of this study, and Esraa Alwan, Maria Saade and TalarKoushian for their support with translation. She thanks themen farmers, the extension agents and the women farmersin particular who were involved in this research for theirtime and commitment to collaboration with the PPBprogramme and with this research. Finally, the author wouldlike to acknowledge the generous support of the CGIARParticipatory Research and Gender Analysis (PRGA)Programme and of Wageningen University.

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