
Demand
On the demand side, CROPS4HD works to influence factors such as individual behavior, markets, social organization and access to knowledge and innovation.
Implementation Strategy
On the demand side, CROPS4HD works to influence factors such as individual behavior, markets, social organization and access to knowledge and innovation. The most important entry point for the project’s demand creation work is a solid understanding of the ‘food literacy’ in each of the local food systems, explicitly differentiating perceptions, eating habits, and food-related decision-making. The same applies for seed systems where the project will build on an improved understanding of seed system actors and the seed quality and cultivar traits requirements of farmers and food systems.
The project’s implementation strategy has three demand-oriented interlinked targets:
- awareness creation/access to information,
- market development and
- consumer-producer relations.
The starting point of CROPS4HD is to trigger the demand for neglected and unterutilized species (NUS), i.e. strengthening the demand side in the food system which, if successful and consumption of NUS increases, will increase as well the demand for NUS seeds. In the food system, project interventions seek to enhance the awareness and the understanding about the health benefits of certain crops and a more diverse diet as a means to boost the demand for these crops, and thus stimulate market development and enhance market services to peasants. As CROPS4HD focuses on direct consumers-producers interlinkages and gives preference on short and agrobiodiverse value chains, mainly those initiatives and stakeholders will be supported that embrace those principles.
For the seed market, key elements of the implementation are enhancing access to information about agronomic performance and food quality traits of collection of cultivars of locally selected NUS species and seed market development, among them strengthening feedbacks loops from seed buyers to seed producers.
Key Outcomes
- Share of consumers having increased diversity in consumption/frequency of NUS in weakly diet at household level is increased by 20%.
- Barriers to access markets for NUS are lowered in four out of six food systems and NUS volume in markets increased.
- Share of peasants with access to NUS seeds is increased by 30%.
- Share of consumers having increased diversity in consumption/frequency of NUS in weakly diet at household level is increased by 15%.
- Barriers to access markets for NUS are lowered in four out of eight food systems and NUS volume in markets increased.
- Share of peasants with access to NUS seeds is increased by 20%.
- Share of consumers having increased diversity in consumption/frequency of NUS in weakly diet at household level is increased by 12%.
- Barriers to access markets for NUS are lowered in four out of six food systems and NUS volume in markets increased.
- Share of peasants with access to NUS seeds is increased by 18%.
- Share of consumers having increased diversity in consumption/frequency of NUS in weakly diet at household level is increased by 20%.
- Barriers to access markets for NUS are lowered in four out of six food systems and NUS volume in markets increased.
- Share of peasants with access to NUS seeds is increased by 30%.
Recent News
First seed fair in Chad: A way to bring the Peasant Seed System forward
It is in Pala that the CROPS4HD team in Chad demonstrated our project as an initiative to show case the importance of peasant seeds in food security and biodiversity preservation. This was done through a two-day fair, on the 20 and 21 December 2022, with the theme “Seed systems, biodiversity and resilience of rural households…
Full articleLinks between gender and varietal selection: the case study in Orissa
In September 2022, Bhittibhumi carried out a participatory Variety Selection (PVS) exercise in Orissa with the support and guidance of FiBL. The exercise involved farmers as key stakeholders to seek and determine the most preferred lines of green gram and sesame for further advancement. Discussions with the farmers (both genders) showed differences and some similarities…
Full articleVisit in Colombia : knowledge exchange
Community seed banks are a central pillar of the project CROPS4HD to increase accessibility of neglected and underutilised crops as well as farmers’ varieties. In Latin America, SWISSAID has been working with community seed banks for 15 years. Therefore, the project decided to capitalise this experience in a South-South exchange
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