# A participatory organization to create both new buckwheat populations and affordable dehulling equipment in France

Véronique Chable, Kevin Morel, Thomas Néau, Benoit Robert, Clara Guéguen, Emma Flipon, Estelle Serpolay, Guillaume Delaunay, Pierre Guéret, Pascal Faes, et al.

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## ► To cite this version:

Véronique Chable, Kevin Morel, Thomas Néau, Benoit Robert, Clara Guéguen, et al. A participatory organization to create both new buckwheat populations and affordable dehulling equipment in France. 12th Organic Seed Growers Conference, Feb 2025, Corvallis, Oregon, USA, United States. hal-05097770

HAL Id: hal-05097770

https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-05097770v1

Submitted on 4 Jun 2025

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# A participatory organization to create both new buckwheat populations and affordable dehulling equipment in France

## 12th Organic Seed Growers Conference
Corvallis, Oregon, USA | February 26 - March 1, 2025

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Veronique Chable<fnref n="1" />, Kevin Morel<fnref n="1" />, Thomas Néau<fnref n="1" />, Benoit Robert<fnref n="1" />, Sylvie Négre<fnref n="1" />, Clara Gueguen², Emma Flipon³, Estelle Serpolay³, Guillaume Delaunay⁴, Pierre Guéret⁴, Pascal Faes⁵, Morvan Le Coz⁵, Anne Guérin⁶

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### Three objectives

#### Participatory plant breeding for Buckwheat to create diversified populations

Since 2014, study of breeding strategies for diversity in organic (EU project - DIVERSIFOOD): creation of an evolutive population "5 pop" from the combination of 5 cultivars/landraces (Billy, Spacinska, Petit gris, Petit prussien and Kaiomchasta).

Now, the objective is to increase dehulling ability within this initial population. One explored strategy is to sow dehulled seeds, during two successive generations, to test if it increases the rate of seeds that have acquired the traits to be dehulled easily.

New added traits has been suggested by farmers at the end of the first year: to increase earliness and to explore a new evolutive populations built on large grains.

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#### Testing and improving the dehulling equipment built by Atelier paysan

Coupled with the selection of the buckwheat "5 pop", improvement of the buckwheat dehulling machine by technical adaptations and testing batches of harvested buckwheat each year until a high dehulling rate is achieved.

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The machine can process 20 kg of buckwheat per hour, which corresponds to the needs of small farms. The next improvements will be based on growers' wishes: possibility to adapt to others types of seed or to add a sorting module upstream and downstream of the machine

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2023
2025

#### Exploring the needs of appropriate equipment to develop on farm plant breeding

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Interviews to identify the wide range of needs to support on-farm seed breeding and multiplication at many steps of farm operations. Beyond the post-harvest management of small quantities of seeds (e.g. mini field thresher, dehulling equipment, modular refrigerated spaces on farm to store seeds), the 2 major challenges related to field crops were the sowing and the harvest. Seed breeding involves to sow and harvest efficiently different seed batches on a high number of microplots from a few m² to thousands of m² without mixing seeds between microplots. The farmers need to design low-tech and low-cost equivalent of experimental seeders and harvesters.

### Project organization

The Breton buckwheat breeding initiative is managed within two projects: EU Liveseeding and Breton OUTILSEM. The European context have brought the global organic seed reflection (breeding strategies and regulation evolutions) and the participative action-research tools such as Living labs concept (FRAB and Triptolème actors belongs the West organic LL of the project).

OUTILSEM has anchored the initiative in the territory involving complementary actors (DUGA and AP) whose actions are indispensable to the progresses in the real socio-economic context.

Our action-research aims to remain very close to the farmers' needs and constraints, knowing that the current socio/economic/political constraints are preventing farmers in a entire commitment for on-farm research.

### Context

* 20 years of participatory plant breeding in Brittany, funding by multi-actor projects e.g. Liveseeding (European project) or OUTILSEM (Regional project)

* Crop diversity increases resilience of food systems and includes forgotten or neglected species are bred

* The bottlenecks are becoming to be the know-how and availability of specific machinery to support diversification from field to plate.

### Buckwheat in France

* A traditional Breton crop for the famous pancakes

* Currently tested for other uses e.g. dehulled seeds to meet the needs of a gluten-free diet and to respond to new societal wishes for more vegetarian food.

* Very few varieties exist in the field and on the market in France

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INRAE

INRAE, UMR BAGAP

(Biodiversity, Agroecology, Landscape management) and its research group "Cultivated Biodiversity and Participatory Research" for the revival of peasant seeds and support for organic farming.

FRAB

The FRAB (Regional Federation of Agrobiologists of Brittany) brings together

Breton organic actors to coordinate training, research and experimentation work, and develc

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Anne Guérin,
ideographe
@nne de BZH

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Project partners and activities

l'atelier paysan

L'Atelier Paysan (AP), created in 2009: a cooperative (SCIC SA) which identifies and develops innovations based on peasant uses via a participatory design

Dune graine
Aux autres

"D'une graine aux autres (DUGA)/From one seed to another": is an entrepreneurs' cooperative and supports to understand, discover, select cultivated biodiversity.

Triptolème

Triptolème (Breton Seed Association) created in 2006 to support the revival of peasant seeds

Liveseeding project brings together more than 37 European partners, the main objective of Liveseeding is to promote growth of organic seed and plant breeding for more sustainable local food systems, transforming organic seed systems. https://liveseeding.eu/

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LiveSeeding

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Co-funded by
the European Union

Funded by the European Union (grant no. 101059872), the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (Contract no. 22.0412) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or REA, nor SERI or UKRI.

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UKRI

UK Research
and Innovation

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OUTILSEM
project
« Recherche
et Société »
framework

<footnote n="1">¹INRAE UMR BAGAP Rennes, France, ²FRAB Rennes France, ³D'une Graine aux autres, Rennes, France, ⁴L'Atelier paysan, Saint Nolff, France, ⁵Triptolème, Questembert, France, ⁶Ideographe, Redon</footnote>