PAR on the Frontlines of Innovation: DATAR
1. INTRODUCTION
Agricultural development and climate resilience planning begins with an assessment of the resources available to farming communities. Most often these assessments focus on deciding what species of crops, livestock or aquatic animal would be best adapted to the local conditions. Less attention has been given to assess the considerable amount of agrobiodiversity, in particularly the amount and distribution of traditional crop, livestock and aquatic genetic diversity, that continues to be maintained in the agro-ecosystems of small-scale farmers in the form of diverse sets of traditional crop varieties, traditional breeds and aquatic farmed types (FAO 2010a; FAO 2010b; FAO 2015; FAO 2019).
A large amount of crop genetic diversity continues to be used and preserved on farm in the form of local varieties (Jarvis et al., 2008; 2011). In livestock, pastoralist and smallholder famers play an important role in the sustainable use of adapted breeds (FAO 2009). The use of a diversity of species and breed herds and flocks is a recognized and widely-spread strategy against climatic and economic adversities for traditional livestock farmers (Galluzzi et al. 2011). For aquatic resources, a large diversity of edible aquatic organisms is still maintained in rice-based ecosystems (Halwart & Bartley 2013). Most of the global aquaculture production comes from small and medium –sized farms (Lazard et al. 2010).
Several global information systems are in place to monitor the amount and distribution of this diversity maintained both by farmers in situ and ex situ in genebanks. The World Information and Early Warning System (WIEWS) on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGRFA), established by FAO, is a world-wide dynamic mechanism to foster information exchange among Member Countries of crop genetic resources. The Domestic Animal Diversity Information System (DAD-IS) is a multilingual data base on animal genetic resources and FishBase is a Biodiversity Information System on all fishes of the world, covering over 32,000 species. Databases also exist where varieties and breeds, and their associated knowledge are listed and registered at country level. However, these databases currently are not linked into decision making tools that can help small holder farmers to use this intra-specific diversity to improve the productivity of their farms.
2. THE AGROBIODIVERSITY DIVERSITY ASSESSMENT TOOL
The Diversity Assessment Tool for Agrobiodiversity and Resilience (DATAR) is developed as a scientific IT tool to conduct assessments on intra-specific genetic diversity on farm and at community level for intra-specific genetic diversity of crop, livestock and aquatic farm types at farm and community level. The gender and age sensitive tool provides national programs with the ability to both, (i) assess the constraints encountered by farmers and farming communities to be able to benefit from the use of their own local crop and animal biodiversity, and (ii) to use this diversity to improve local agricultural productivity and agroecosystems resilience.
Using this step-wise tool, national programs can determine when and where there is sufficient crop variety and animal breed diversity available for farmers to meet their environmental and social economic demands and improve their production landscapes. The tool provides a portfolio approach to interventions determined by whether the constraint is due to (a) the lack of sufficient diversity of crop varieties and animal breeds within the production system; (b) the lack of access by farmers to available diversity, (c) the limitations in information on the performance of varieties available in key aspects, and (d) the inability of farmers and communities to realize the true value of the materials they manage and use.
The DATAR system includes (1) aBack Office Web App for Administrators, Scientist, Program Leader, Translators, (2) The Android App for Researcher on the field, and (3) The Android App for Farmers / End User. The system is based on 20 years of protocols already developed for crops, and is currently being adjusted for livestock and aquatic resources. The DATAR application should work on tablet, computer, and cell phone. The cost-effectiveness of data collection – with improved data quality and speed of collection — using tablets and applications, has been demonstrated for biodiversity conservation surveys (Barrett and Headey, 2014; Leisher, 2014). The system follows a protocol of linking the outputs of focus group discussions, household surveys and empirical data to allow the identification and location of crop, livestock and aquatic agrobiodiversity across the landscape, and allows researchers to add in varieties or breeds or fish populations with their descriptions and functional traits. The information is then analysed and fed into a heuristic decision making framework. The system links data collection and decision-making, allows the user to systematically collect and securely keep data, saves time in data analysis, is open access, and can be customized so that it is adapted to available to the time and resources of the user.
3. THE DATAR MODULES
The DATAR application has three main modules. The first module “Agrobiodiversity data” would encompass data collection, data analysis, measurements of indicators, and would give a summary of the state of intra-specific genetic diversity at a given time. This module allows estimating the extent and distribution of diversity in the farmers’ production systems. This is the first step in determining whether there is sufficient diversity of crop varieties or livestock breeds within a production system to meet the variousneeds of farming communities. The second module “Agrobiodiversity interventions” is an intervention/decision tree guiding DATAR users towards adapted intra-specific genetic diversity based interventions depending on their constraints and priorities. Constraints and priorities are either already identified or will be identified following the module “Agrobiodiversity data”. The third module “Agrobiodiversity impact” will measure the impacts of the interventions conducted on agrobiodiversity itself and the resilience of livelihoods and production systems.
3.1 Agrobiodiversity Data
This module gives methods of data collection and analysis depending on the sector (crop, livestock, etc.). It provides checklists of background documents and data, including published assessments of functional traits of different varieties, breeds and aquatic farm-types. It also provides methods to identifying diversity suppliers. It also gives detailed descriptions of methods and participatory tools used for data collection and analysis. Focus Group Discussions with complementary participatory tools and household survey questionnaires will be used for data collection. DATAR users are first asked to make the choice of the sector they wish to focus on and the species before being guided to use step by step FGDs and HHS. Data collected in the tables will be used for calculating indicators including richness, evenness, diversity of seed suppliers, diversity of information sources.
3.2 Agrobiodiversity interventions
Following the analysis and calculation of indicators in the first module, DATAR users are guided into the intervention/decision tree. They will first have to make the choice to either look at a specific sector or keep all sectors. The first level of the decision tree follows the four main categories of constraints and priorities that are (a) the lack of sufficient diversity of crop varieties and animal breeds within the production system; (b) the lack of access by farmers to available diversity, (c) the limitations in information on the performance of varieties available in key aspects, and (d) the inability of farmers and communities to realize the true value of the materials they manage and use. Following levels go into more details under each constraint. Interventions available at each level of constraints are then listed. Interventions are grouped by category. There are 10 categories overall: (1) Improving availability of materials, (2) Improving information and availability of information, (3) Improving traditional variety materials and their management, (4) Improved Processing; (5) Alternatives and modification to seed/breed certification systems, (6) Market creation and Market promotion; (7) Building Partnerships and Trust, (8) Changing norms, (9) Promoting ecological land management practices, (10) Payment schemes for ecosystem services.
3.3 Agrobiodiversity Impact
Comparing baseline data and final data collected after applying interventions available in the decision tree, an analysis of impacts on agrobiodiversity is made and indicators calculated.