Abstract
Policies for promoting the in situ conservation of underutilized crop varieties include the provision of economic incentives to farmers for their market commercialization. Nevertheless, market participation could also have the counter-effect of favoring the cultivation of uniform commercial crop varieties and inducing the erosion of crop genetic diversity. The objective of this research was to identify the determinants of the in situ conservation of native chili varieties, including market participation. To this end, 128 farmers were surveyed in the Amazon rainforest region of Ucayali in Peru. The data were analyzed using probit, multinomial logit and truncated Poisson models with covariance matrix correction for cluster errors by rural community. Results suggest that participation in commercial agriculture statistically significantly increases the in situ conservation of native chili varieties; only when farmers sell their products to local retailers, but not when they supply wholesalers. In particular, this result implies that policies designed to encourage specific forms of market participation could have a positive effect on farmers’ economic well-being and simultaneously could help to achieve crop genetic diversity conservation goals.
Highlights
Peru is one of the world’s centers of diversity for native chilies (Capsicum spp.) [1,2]
The results suggest that older farmers, with more education, who receive technical support, have smaller total agricultural areas, have access to a source of irrigation and credit, who do not perform other economic activities, have higher social connectivity, whose plots are located in Campo Verde or Manantay in contrast to Yarinacocha and participate in commercial agriculture by supplying either retailers or wholesalers, but are not close to the market place, are more likely to cultivate native chilies
This straightforward evaluation of only one type of crop diversity index has provided empirical evidence that human capital in the form of technical support would increase crop diversity conservation. This result was not expected given that technical support increases the opportunity costs of in situ conservation, as indicated by [3]
Summary
Peru is one of the world’s centers of diversity for native chilies (Capsicum spp.) [1,2] Many varieties of this crop are underutilized and under the threat of extinction, mainly due to the lack of Sustainability 2014, 6 economic incentives for local farmers for their continued cultivation [1]. Market-based conservation approaches, including participation in commercial agriculture, have gained significant popularity as in situ (or in place of origin) crop conservation strategies [6] These strategies assume that because crop diversity is insufficiently valuable for local farmers to protect, one must seek to create novel or expanded markets in order to induce conservation [6]. In situ conservation of crop diversity directly depends on the local farmers’ decisions to continue cultivating diverse crop varieties within the boundaries of the agricultural ecosystems. It is still unclear how to support farmers’ efforts to maintain crop diversity on their farms [5,8,9]
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