Participatory Varietal Selection

Participatory varietal selection (PVS) is a participatory crop-improvement method in which farmers choose, grow, and evaluate finished or near-finished cultivars on their own fields under their own management, so that the varieties identified are the ones farmers actually prefer and will adopt. Formalized by John Witcombe and colleagues in 1996 as the faster, cheaper sibling of participatory plant breeding, PVS responds to the problem that conventional varietal release — selection on research stations against breeder criteria — often produces varieties that fail in farmers' fields or ignore traits farmers value, leaving the formal seed system with low adoption in marginal, heterogeneous environments. By moving the final stage of selection onto farms and into farmers' hands, PVS rapidly screens existing genetic material for fitness to real growing conditions and real preferences.