ABSTRACT
In the early 1990s, small farmer associations began to form in the Brunca Region in southern Costa Rica in response to the need to improve marketing opportunities by eliminating or reducing intermediaries and to organize seed-storage facilities. The main objective of the Consejo Nacional de Produccion (CNP) supplies seed of nationally grown varieties, not the local varieties developed through participatory plant breeding. The technical committee of the Guagaral farmers' association is planning to hold biodiversity fairs to share information on the genetic and organoleptic characteristics of the seed they produce. Solidarity networks were set up by the farmers' associations that make up the Union de Semilleros del Sur to provide credit to members, obtain bank loans to invest in seed production, facilitate community access to seeds of improved and local varieties, reduce the cost of these varieties and provide storage and conditioning facilities for the grains produced.
