In the Ecuadorian provinces of Bolivar, Chimborazo, and Cotopaxi, family farmers are building new capacity to conserve and use the biodiversity on their farms. By participating in action research they gain a greater understanding and control of their plant genetic resources. This results in increased resilience to climatic and other shocks and takes them further on the path towards food sovereignty.

Access and benefit sharing of plant genetic resources is a crucial but very complex, political and legalistic matter. Does the formal system work for family farmers? As we see in this special issue of Farming Matters, co-produced with Bioversity International, it poses many challenges. At the same time, farmers around the world are leading successful initiatives for access and benefit sharing. This issue of Farming Matters presents cases that demonstrate the limited extent to which family farmers have been able to benefit from the ‘formal’ ABS process. It also uncovers some of the effective principles and mechanisms for access and benefit sharing that are part and parcel of farmers’ everyday practices, such as community seed banks, and successful collaborations between researchers and farmers. Some of these arrangements have links with the formal system.

Victor M. Toledo is a Mexican ethnoecologist and social activist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. His work focuses primarily on the study of agroecological and knowledge systems. In this interview, Victor M. Toledo explains why co-creation of knowledge is an integral part of agroecology and discusses the changes that are needed for this form of agriculture to gain ground in the global
arena. He argues that agroecology is in itself a major shift in our relationship with knowledge.

Farmers are plant breeders when they select and save the seeds of the plants best adapted to the conditions in their fields. For over two decades, farmer breeders in Honduras have been working with scientists and NGOs to develop new bean varieties. In a context of high agrobiodiversity, limited public sector agricultural research capacity and extension services, the process has not always been smooth. Against all odds, this collaborative effort, which has brought scientific knowledge together with farmer knowledge, has positioned farmers at the forefront of innovation for climate change adaptation. This article highlights lessons learned over 20 years about the power of knowledge co-creation.

A group of coffee farmers in Turrialba, Costa Rica,is successfully exploring diversification options with horticultural food crops. This is being done in collaboration with two vegetable seed banks that allow family farmers to use varieties freely under the multilateral system of FAO´s International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.

Only a small number of governments have established meaningful and effective farmer-centred measures for the implementation of access and benefit sharing of genetic resources. One reason is the highly complex nature of the international regulatory system. This special issue of Farming Matters magazine presents practical ways in which access and benefit sharing for family farmers can be enhanced through collaborative efforts based on the rural realities, knowledge and needs of local communities. Key in this approach are community seed banks and farmer seed systems, which serve as local points of access to genetic resources as well as ensuring equitable sharing of benefits. This article presents an overview of both the ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ access and benefit sharing systems that are currently being used, and examines the theory and practice of these systems.

A platform of farmers, retailers and service providers,civil society organisations, NGOs, government officials, and researchers improves livelihoods in Rwanda. Through
interaction and collaboration, these groups experiment with various technological and institutional innovations, thereby tackling local agricultural challenges. This
experience illustrates the importance of institutionalising a space where knowledge can be co-created.

For the past half century agricultural innovation has denied a voice to the many groups who work outside the profession of science – farmers, food providers, women and the urban poor. The value of their expertise gained through practical experience must be recognised in the production and validation of knowledge.

From 1-4 December, 2015 Youth in Landscape Initiative workshop at Global Landscape Forum (GLF) in Paris was organized to guide 50 young innovators together to solve rights and tenure, finance and trade, restoration, measuring success, and education challenges. I was one of the 10 young innovators who worked on the Education Theme Landscape Challenge.

Professor Steve Gliessman and farmer Jim Cochran are among the movers and shakers of the strawberry sector in California. Since the 1980s they have been experimenting with sustainable ways to grow strawberries and with alternative food networks. Committed to the agroecological transition, they built a powerful farmer- researcher partnership that was groundbreaking for farmers, academia and the strawberry industry as a whole.