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The promise of participation: democratising the management of
biodiversity
Michel Pimbert
Technical advances in breeding – however impressive
– are meaningless without farmers. The corporate research model seeks
to turn farmers into serfs in a feudal agricultural system, a move which will
be devastating to our future food supply. Michel Pimbert identifies some of
the reforms needed to encourage democratic participation and more genuine local
control in the management of agricultural biodiversity. Emphasis is placed on
strengthening diversity, decentralisation and democracy through the regeneration
of more localised food systems and economies.
Despite repeated calls for peoples’ participation in
conservation and development over the last thirty years, the term “participation”
is generally interpreted in ways which cede no control to local people. It is
rare for professionals (agronomists, foresters, plant breeders, and so on) to
relinquish control over key decisions on the design, management and evaluation
of local or community based management of agricultural biodiversity. The thinking,
values, methods and behaviour dominant in their profession or discipline tends
to be stable and conservative and are concerned with “the needs and interests
of the rich.” [1] While recognising the need for
peoples’ participation, many professionals place clear limits on the form
and degree of participation that they tolerate in local contexts. Participation
is still largely seen as a means to achieve externally-desirable goals.
The concept of “participatory development” has gained new vigour
over the last two decades, partly as a result of the evident failures of top
down, standardised development, the retreat of governments in service and technology
delivery, and the emphasis on market-based solutions in a globalised economy.
The reasons given for professional re-orientation and organisational transformation
vary and are not necessarily the same for all actors. They include the need
for flexibility and cost effectiveness, the need to respond adaptively to dynamic
change and to a diversity of social and ecological conditions, the recognition
that human needs differ in time and place, and the need to deal with open ended
uncertainties. Because of this, the meanings given to “participation”
and “participatory development” vary considerably (see Table 1 below).
The divergences highlight the ideological framework which actors consciously
or unconsciously adopt in their work.
Table 1. Participatory Development Paradigms
| |
Business as usual |
Technical fix,- the market is the solution
|
Structural change
|
|
Goal
|
making our projects more efficient
|
making our projects more effective
|
multiple economic, ecological and social goals
|
|
Target
|
singling out ‘target groups’ as objects of development projects
|
reforming policies and institutions to allow for regulation by the market
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multiple linkages with diverse actors; broad coalitions and alliances
for social change
|
|
Principal methods for analysis and planning
|
logframes, Rapid Rural Appraisals (RRA), questionnaires, beneficiary
assessment, cost-benefit analysis
|
logframes, RRA, participatory Rural Appraisals (PRA), cost benefit analysis,
market surveys
|
Participatory Learning and Action (PLA)and complementary participatory
methodologies, deliberative democracy, advocacy, coalition building, direct
action
|
|
Dominant role and relationships
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enlightened technocrat and benevolent paternalism
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provider of market based solutions
|
genuine partnerships and power sharing
|
|
Boundary conditions
|
broader context unacknowledged - everything remains as is: property rights,
land tenure, social relations, decision-making structures & processes
|
broader context unaddressed: everything beyond the intervention remains
as is; economy and markets treated as given, but subject to some intervention
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explicitly concerned with changing the broader context of people’s lives:
social and ecological goals, many futures possible
|
|
Development goal
|
improved products and services
|
more kinds of interventions mediated through the market
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minimise the need for external intervention, self reliance
|
|
Diversity (social and ecological)
|
low
|
low to medium
|
high
|
Deliberative democracy
Seven different types of participation are shown in Table 2.
The implication of this typology is that the meaning of participation should
be clearly spelt out in all community-based programmes. To achieve sustainable
and effective management of biological resources and effective agricultural
research, nothing less than functional participation will suffice. Participatory
Rural Appraisal (PRA) describes one group of a growing family of methods ands
ways of working that enable local people to share, enhance and analyse their
knowledge of life and conditions, to plan and act. Deliberative and Inclusive
Processes (DIPs) are also increasingly being used in the North and the South
to give the historically excluded a voice in decisions. Some of these methods
and processes include citizens’ juries [2], consensus
conferences, scenario workshops, multi-criteria mapping, participatory learning
and action (PLA), visioning exercises and deliberative polling. Many of these
participatory processes have been developed in an attempt to move beyond traditional
forms of consultation. [3] These approaches require self
critical awareness of the facilitators’ own attitudes and behaviour towards
local people. The implementation of codes of conduct and research agreements
between local communities and outsiders – as has been done by the Kuna
of Panama and the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada – can enhance reciprocal accountability
by spelling out the roles, rights, responsibilities and distribution of costs
and benefits among actors. [4]
Decentralisation policies generally offer a more enabling context
for deliberative and inclusive processes in decision making. The democratic
potential of decentralisation is usually greatest when it is linked with the
institutionalisation of local level popular participation and community mobilisation.
In several municipalities in Brazil where participatory budgeting was introduced
in the 1990s, public spending priorities changed significantly, reducing inequalities
in some places. The improvement of the quality of life was evident, as it was
the first time that the local government had taken into account the needs of
the poorest sectors of the population. Participatory budgeting has not only
meant a much greater involvement of citizens and community organisations in
determining priorities but also a more transparent and accountable form of government.
The potential of participatory budgeting in community based or local management
of agricultural biodiversity needs to be more fully explored.
However, decentralisation does not always equate with increased
democratic participation. It does not necessarily break power structures or
lead to a redistribution of resources, but may only result in de-concentration
with a transfer of power to another level of the bureaucracy (see box below).
Table 2. Different forms of Participation
|
Passive Participation |
People participate by being told what is
going to happen or has already happened. It is unilateral announcement
by an administration or project management without any listening to people's
responses. |
|
Participation in Information Giving |
People participate by answering questions
posed by extractive researchers and project managers using questionnaire
surveys or similar approaches. People do not have the opportunity to influence
proceedings, as the findings of the research or project design are neither
shared nor checked for accuracy. |
|
Participation by Consultation |
People participate by being consulted, and
external agents listen to views. These external agents define both problems
and solutions, and may modify these in the light of people's responses.
Such a consultative process does not concede any share in decision-making
and professionals are under no obligation to take on board peoples's views. |
|
Participation for Material Incentives |
People participate by providing resources,
for example labour, in return for food, cash or other material incentives.
Much in-situ research and bioprospecting falls in this category, as rural
people provide the fields but are not involved in the experimentation
or the process of learning. It is very common to see this called participation,
yet people have no stake in prolonging activities when the incentives
end. |
|
Functional Participation |
People participate by forming groups to
meet predetermined objectives related to the project, which can involve
the development or promotion of externally initiated social organisation.
Such involvement does not tend to be at early stages of project cycles
or planning, but rather after major decisions have been made. These institutions
tend to be dependent on external initiators and facilitators, but may
become self-dependent. |
|
Interactive Participation |
People participate in joint analysis, which
leads to action plans and the formation of new local groups or the strengthening
of existing ones. It tends to involve interdisciplinary methodologies
that seek multiple perspectives and make use of systematic and structured
learning processes. These groups take control over local decisions, and
so people have a stake in maintaining structures or practices. |
|
Self-Mobilization |
People participate by taking initiatives
independent of external institutions to change systems. Such self-initiated
mobilisation and collective action may of may not challenge existing inequitable
distributions of wealth and power. |
Modified from J Pretty, Alternative systems of inquiry for sustainable
agriculture. IDS Bulletin, 25(2):37-48, 1994
The participatory process – and the political negotiation over what constitutes
valid knowledge in a particular context (see box below) – deeply challenges
bureaucracies and professionals to assume different roles and responsibilities.
In particular, existing bureaucracies and professionals will often need to shift
from being project implementers and deliverers of standard services and technologies
to new roles that facilitate local people’s analysis, deliberations, planning,
action, monitoring and evaluation. The whole process should strengthen local
groups and institutions, so enhancing the capacity of citizens to take action
on their own. This implies changes in organisational cultures and the adoption
of new professional skills and values. The adoption of participatory methodologies
calls for a greater emphasis on training in communication rather than technical
skills. Outside professionals must learn to work closely with colleagues from
different disciplines or sectors, as well as with rural people themselves. Professional
agencies need to set aside time for field experiential learning for their staff,
so that they can see, hear, and understand the reality of local people, and
then work to make it count.
Knowledge and power
“Contests for knowledge are contests for power. For nearly two centuries
that contest has been rigged in favour of scientific knowledge by the
established power structures. We should ask why it is that scientists’
endeavours are not seen to be on a par with other cultural endeavours,
but have come to be singled out as providing the one and only expert route
to knowledge and guide to action. We need to confront the question of
what kinds of knowledge we want to produce, and recognise that that is
at the same time a question about what kinds of power relations we want
to support - and what kind of world we want to live in… We are all
involved in the production of knowledge about the world - in that sense,
there is no single group of experts”
H Kamminga, “Science for people?”, in T Wakeford and M
Walters (eds), Science for the Earth, Wiley: Chichester, 1995.
|
With real commitment and work, truly participatory approaches
can yield impressive results, as in the case of particpatory bean breeding undertaken
by the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (see above). In this example,
the adoption rates of conventionally bred varieties were compared with those
generated by ‘farmer research committees’. These committees used
the same original germplasm as formal sector breeders, but performed their own
selections under their own conditions, changing traits and the genetic make-up
according to their own perceived needs. As the graph shows, communities with
farmer committees, and their neighbouring communities, had dramatically accelerated
rates of adoption of the new varieties. Not surprisingly, the results suggest
that the more farmers are involved in breeding and selecting, the more they
will actually use the varieties generated, and more quickly.
Deconcentration, not Decentralisation
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the International Agricultural Research
Institutes made significant efforts to reform the methods and topics of
crop breeding to meet new pro-poor and environmental objectives. However,
these reforms eventually fell short because they were confined to a new
methodology called Farming Systems Research and Extension (FSRE). FRSE
was a conscientious attempt to grapple with the multiple characteristics
of crops and farming systems that make analyses by remote researchers
very difficult. But the analysis and process remained extremely hierarchical.
The move towards FSRE was a small but real advance over older strategies
because researchers did start taking into account more variables and adapting
technologies to suit specific local conditions. It was thought that by
using the new methodologies of FSRE to determine the concerns of small
farmers, researchers and extensionists could adapt technologies to their
benefit by reworking options that had either been developed but not-adopted
(‘on the shelf’), or had benefited only better-off farmers
(trying to achieve a spill over from larger to smaller farmers).
The key steps in the FSRE process include:
| 1. |
Conducting surveys of farmer preferences of a
given “type” and collecting data on sets of homogenous
farming systems |
| 2. |
Taking the information back to the research station
for diagnosis (usually via statistical analysis) of farmer problems
to determine research priorities. |
| 3. |
Station-based crop breeding and technology development
according to those priorities. |
| 4. |
Station-based design of experiments to be conducted
on-farm to test the new technologies. |
| 5. |
Collecting /analysing farmers’ responses
to those experiments. |
| 6. |
Making adjustments to the technologies. |
| 7. |
Preparing the final recommendations for extension
to farmers. |
Unfortunately this new methodology did not fundamentally
change the existing structure of research and extension. Farmers’
were still considered as inert “targets” rather than active
and collegial partners of the research and evaluation apparatus, and were
involved only in a few stages of the research process (steps 1 and 5 above).
Surveys were increasingly utilised, but were suited to meet tight-budgeted
researchers’ demands for ‘quick and cheap’ appraisal.
Resources and knowledge were not extended to farmers, rather, scientists
and extensionists retained their roles as the primary agents of technology
change — collecting data, analysing it, developing technologies
and modifying them. The real change was that they extended the research
arena into farmers’ fields.
What FRSE represented was a deconcentration of research and crop breeding
through an expanded role of unrepresentative actors who are upwardly accountable
to central institutes, rather than a decentralisation. In the end, FSRE
was better at making minor adaptations to prior technologies and recommendations.
Because the hierarchical nature of research and extension remained unchanged,
farming systems work generated interesting, but not very productive, analyses.
Source: Aaron deGrassi and Peter Rosset, A New Green Revolution for
Africa? Myths and Realities of Agriculture, Technology and Development,
Food First Books, USA (in press).
|
Source: A deGrassi/P Rosset (see box above), after CIAT
Training in participatory principles, concepts and methods
must be viewed as part of a larger process of reorienting institutional policies,
organisational cultures, procedures, financial management practices, reporting
systems, supervisory methods, reward systems and norms. [5]
Institutional mechanisms and rewards must be designed to encourage the spread
of participatory methods within the organisation. Without this support from
the top, it is unlikely that deliberative and participatory approaches will
become core professional activities.
Transformation and citizen empowerment
It is not enough to focus on a re-invigorated political democracy
to mainstream local control and participation in the management of agricultural
biodiversity. Widening economic democracy is also key. The structural reforms
needed for more political and economic democracy are best seen from a broader
food system and livelihood perspective. [6] Some of the
reversals, issues, relationships and processes that need to be addressed in
this context are summarised in Table 3.
Broadly speaking, the blueprint approach is associated with
the increasingly global food system based on the principles of uniformity, centralisation,
control and coercion. The learning process approach is associated with more
localised food systems [7] that are grounded in the principles
of diversity, decentralisation and dynamic adaptation. Localised food systems
potentially offer a more enabling context for democratic participation than
the global food system which relies on technologies designed to enhance both
profits and centralised political control over key links in the food chain.
| |
Blueprint |
Process |
|
point of departure |
nature's diversity and its potential commercial values |
the diversity of both people and nature's values |
|
keywords |
strategic planning and trade liberalisation |
Participation and local definitions of well being |
|
locus of decision making |
centralised, ideas originate in capital city |
decentralised, ideas originate in village and municipalities |
|
first steps |
data collection and plan |
awareness and action |
|
design |
static, by experts. Design of technologies and systems
reflect and reinforce priorities of more powerful actors |
evolving, people involved. Broad citizen control on design
of technologies and systems |
|
main resources |
central funds and technicians |
local people and their assets |
|
methods, rules |
standardised, universal, fixed package |
diverse, local, varied basket of choices |
|
analytical assumptions |
reductionist (natural and economic science bias) |
systems, holistic |
|
management focus |
spending budgets, completing projects on time, market performance
and shareholders assets |
sustained improvement and performance, focus on right to
food, health and other indicators of locally defined well being |
|
communication |
vertical: orders down, reports up |
lateral: mutual learning and sharing experience |
|
evaluation |
external, intermittent |
internal, continuous |
|
error |
buried |
embraced |
|
relationship with people |
controlling, policing, inducing, motivating, dependency
creating. People seen as beneficiaries and consumers |
enabling, supporting, empowering. People seen as actors
and citizens |
|
associated with |
normal professionalism and corporate power |
new professionalism and democratic decision making |
|
outputs |
diversity in conservation, and uniformity in production
(agriculture, forestry,...)
|
diversity as a principle of production and conservatio
|
| |
the empowerment of professionals and corporations |
the empowerment of citizens and local communities |
A radical shift is required from a largely corporate-led development
which aims to retain external control on the management and end uses of food
systems (including agricultural biodiversity) to an approach which devolves
more responsibility and decision making power to local communities and citizens.
The whole process should lead to local institution building or strengthening,
so enhancing the capacity of people to take action on their own. This implies
the adoption of 1) a learning process approach, 2) new professional values,
participatory methodologies and behaviour, and 3) enabling policies aimed at
re-localising food systems and economies, and cultural values that emphasise
more direct citizen participation in determining research agendas, regulations
and policies (see box below).
Perhaps more than ever before, the growth of democratic participation
in the management of agricultural biodiversity depends on expanding spaces for
autonomous action by civil society. It is also dependent on a process of localisation
and reversals that regenerates a diversity of localised food systems, economies
and ecologies. The unprecedented imbalances of power induced by corporate-led
globalisation challenge us to engage with these conceptual and methodological
frontiers. Now is a time for bold and extraordinary initiatives to ensure that
participation does not become a forgotten human right in this century.
Democratising R&D and policy making
| 1. |
Open up decision making bodies
and governance structures within R&D organisations to allow
a wider representation of different actors and greater transparency,
equity and accountability in budget allocation and decisions on
R&D priorities in the life sciences. Throughout the world, there
is a dire need for much wider and more gender balanced representation
of different citizens in these institutions – small farmers,
tribal people, forest dwellers, fisherfolk, healers, and also farm
workers, small food processors, retailers and consumers. These bodies
should set the agenda for the design of food and farming technologies.
They broadly decide which technologies will ultimately be developed,
why, how and for whom. |
| 2. |
Reorganise conventional scientific
and technological research to encourage participatory knowledge
creation and technological developments that combine the strengths
of farmers and scientists in the search for locally adapted solutions
and food systems. An important goal here is to ensure that both
knowledge and technologies are tailored to the diversity of human
needs and situations in which they are to be used – and this
on the basis of an inclusive process in which the means and ends
of R&D are primarily shaped by and for citizens through conscious
deliberation and negotiation. |
| 3. |
Ensure that genetic resources
on which transgenic and other technologies are based remain accessible
to all as a basic condition for economic democracy and the exercise
of human rights, including the right to food and participation.
Decisions to issue patents on genetic resources and national intellectual
property right legislation require more comprehensive public framing
of laws and policies based on deliberative and inclusive models
of direct democracy. |
| 4. |
Include the full diversity of interests
and values in technological risk assessments by running consensus
conferences, citizen juries, focus groups and referendums on a regular
basis. These deliberative and inclusive democratic procedures need
to be linked into the formal policy process through appropriate
reforms that allow citizens to more directly frame policies and
regulations. Participatory democracy can help re-frame policies
on the future of food and farming to reflect broader social interests
|
|
 Michel
Pimbert is an agricultural ecologist who works for the International
Institute for Environment and Development in London, UK. He has also worked
at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics
(ICRISAT) in India and the World Wide Fund for Nature in Switzerland.
Over the last 20 years he has written widely on agriculture, natural resource
management, participatory action research and the political ecology of
biodiversity, rights and culture. He can be contacted at michel.pimbert@iied.org
This article is taken from a longer paper entitled “Towards Democratic
Control and Participation in the Management of Agricultural Biodiversity”
which was presented at the Growing Diversity conference in Rio Branco,
Brazil in May 2002. The full paper is available from www.amazonlink.org/gd/diversity/event.html
or on request from GRAIN.
|
| [1] |
R Chambers, Challenging the Professions. Frontiers for
rural development. IT Publications, London, UK, 1993. |
| [2] |
MP Pimbert and T Wakeford, Prajateerpu. A citizens jury/scenario
workshop on Food and Farming Futures in Andhra Pradesh, APCDD, NBSAP,
The University of Hyderabad, IDS and IIED. IIED, London, 2002. |
| [3] |
MP Pimbert and T Wakeford, “Deliberative democracy
and citizen empowerment - an over-view”. PLA Notes 40: 23-28. IIED,
London, 2001. |
| [4] |
D Posey and G Dutfield, Beyond intellectual prop-erty
rights. Towards trad-itional resource rights for indigenous peoples and
communities. IDRC and WWF International, Ottawa and Gland, 1996. |
| [5] |
IIED and IDS, Transforming bureaucracies. Institution-alising
participation in natural resource manage-ment. An annotated biblio-graphy.
London, 2002.
|
| [6] |
MP Pimbert et al, “Global restructuring, agri-food
systems and livelihoods”. Gatekeeper Series no 100, IIED, London,
2002. |
| [7] |
Localised food systems start at the household level and
expand to neighbourhood, municipal and regional levels. Food systems include
not just the production aspects of food but also processing, distribution,
access, use, food recycling and waste. |
Reference for this article: Michel Pimbert, 2003, The promise of participation:
democratising the management of biodiversity, Seedling, July 2003, GRAIN
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