FAO, through its Seed and Plant Genetics Resources Service, is conducting a series of expert consultations, workshops and conferences to generate ideas, develop methodologies and facilitate initiatives aimed at strengthening on-farm seed multiplication (the informal seed system), thereby addressing the seed security needs of smallholder farmers. As in sub-Saharan Africa, the informal seed system in Latin America receives inadequate attention from policy-makers and is not accorded the importance it deserves in the agricultural production system. FAO, with funding from the Netherlands, organized the Latin American Workshop on Seed Multiplication by Resource-limited Farmers to identify the major constraints facing on-farm seed production and the groups of resource-limited farmers to be targeted, and to propose solutions for increasing the availability of good quality seed to small holder farmers. These proceedings should serve both as a good record of the workshop and as a guide towards the development of interventions by Latin American governments, as well as by national and international institutions and agencies that may desire to assist further in this topic.
