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 builds 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:

1. awareness creation/access to information,
2. market development, and
3. 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 to 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

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