RESUMEN
In Ecuador, farmers poorly adopt practices to manage potato seed degeneration. This could be related to the deficient understanding of the farmers' capacity to experience seed degeneration and respond to it. We contribute to this understanding by answering: How do farmers experience seed degeneration?; What practices do farmers implement when their seed is degenerated?; and Is experiencing degeneration the pivotal factor determining how farmers replace their seed regardless their income? We analysed data collected in Ecuador through farmers' focus group discussions, farmers' surveys and interviews, and the Ecuadorian employment status survey. We found that approximately half of the farmers experienced degeneration. Farmers experienced it through low yields, change in seed appearance, crop weakening, and seed physiological problems. When farmers experienced degeneration, they replaced their seed, sought for technical advice, applied more agricultural inputs, or grew other crops. Income was an important trigger for farmers to change their seed replacement practices.
RESUMEN
As an emerging innovation, hybrid potato breeding raises high expectations about faster variety development and clean true potato seed as a new source of planting material. Hybrid breeding could, therefore, substantially contribute to global food security and other major sustainable development goals. However, its success will not only depend on the performance of hybrid potato in the field, but also on a range of complex and dynamic system conditions. This article is based on a multidisciplinary project in which we have studied the innovation dynamics of hybrid potato breeding and explored how these dynamics may shape the future of hybrid potato. Inspired by the approach of responsible innovation, we closely involved key players in the Dutch and international potato sector and other relevant actors in thinking about these potato futures. An important and recurrent theme in our work is the tension between the predominant commercial innovation dynamics in plant breeding and promises to respond to the global challenges of food security, agrobiodiversity and climate change. In this article, we, therefore, discuss responsible innovation strategies in (hybrid) potato breeding, which may help to bridge this tension and finally reflect on the implications for the field of plant breeding in general.
RESUMEN
Articles published in Food Security in 2021 are reviewed, showing a wide range of topics covered. Many articles are directly linked with "food" and associated terms such as "nutritive", "nutrition", "dietary", and "health". Another important group is linked with (food) "production" and a range of connected terms including: "irrigation", "cultivated", "organic", "varieties", "crop", "vegetable", and "land". A third group of terms refers to the scales at which food security is considered: "household", "farmer", "farm", "smallholder", "community", "nation" and "region". A few themes of Food Security are considered: (1) food supply and demand, food prices, and global trade; (2) food security in households; (3) food production; (4) value chains and food systems; (5) the evolution of the concept of food security; and (6) global nutrition. In a last section, perspectives for Food Security are discussed along four lines of thoughts: the level of inter-disciplinary research published in Food Security; the importance of the Social Sciences for food security as a collective good underpinned by other collective goods within food systems; the balance between the Global South and the Global North in Food Security; and a warning that urgent global challenges that vitally interact with food security may be left unattended as a result of the current public health emergency.