Agricultural Policies

Paper

Sustainable Use and Management of Crop Genetic Resources: Landraces on Hungarian Small Farms

Paper submitted to the Thirteenth Annual Conference of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economics June 25 – 28, Budapest (2004)

Crop genetic resources are natural assets that are necessary for future crop improvement, and on which farm households in isolated, marginal production environments depend directly for food. In recognition of their importance, international agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) encourage national governments to support their sustainable use and management, on farms and in gene bank collections. The aim of this paper is to contribute research-based information to support the design of efficient and equitable conservation programmes in Hungary, a signatory to these international agreements. The role of socially valuable, crop landraces still found on small farms in Hungary, and of the farmers who maintain them, has not yet been elucidated. A Poisson Hurdle model, applied to data from a statistical survey of 323 households in three pilot conservation sites, is used to predict whether households grow landraces and explain landrace richness. Farm households who are poorer, with older decision-makers, larger families, and who are more isolated from market infrastructure are more likely to grow landraces and maintain greater landrace richness. Those with small farms with lower quality soils and less irrigation have higher predicted probabilities of growing landraces. Development of market infrastructure may contribute to abandonment of landraces in this setting, though specialised markets for high-quality products need further investigation. Where development opportunities are few, supporting the continued management of crop genetic resources on farms may have positive equity implications and address other social goals.

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