Students will divide into groups by countries. Each group is asked to list at least one (preferably more) popular, widely-used irrigated variety and one popular, widely-grown rainfed variety from their country, and to answer the following questions:
• Where did the variety come from (e.g. from a research station, foreign introduction, farmer variety)?
• Was it officially tested and released?
• How did it spread (e.g. public sector seed program, private sector sales, farmer-to-farmer distribution)?
• What are the characteristics of the variety that farmers value?
One member of each group will act as a facilitator and present the results to the class.