OAU Protocol

1. Inventory

Identify plant resources, seeds, plants, trees, existing knowledge, climatic conditions, soils, food needs, capacities of the territory and available means.

2. Select

Choose resources with food, medicinal, ecological or cultural usefulness, reproduction capacity, adaptation potential and territorial interest.

3. Test

Observe germination, vigor, growth, resilience, water needs, climatic behavior, health, capacity to produce and reproduce.

4. Reproduce

Obtain new seeds, plants, cuttings, young trees and locally reproducible generations.

5. Adapt

Progressively accompany the plant toward the conditions of the host territory. Do not confuse adaptation with brutal exposure.

6. Validate

Validate only what would have been experimented, observed, reproduced, verified and documented.

7. Conserve

Protect seeds, plants, lots, data, photos, videos, experimentation journals and knowledge obtained.

8. Disseminate

Make validated resources available in a framed, documented, traceable and territory-adapted manner.

9. Transmit

Allow an advanced territory to help a new territory with seeds, plants, knowledge, methods and results.

Proposed rules

The framework under development rests on a few essential principles.

• •no validation without experimentation
• •no dissemination without traceability
• •each territory would carry out its own cycles
• •successes and failures would be documented
• •local resources are protected

Envisioned coding system

EF-[Territory]-[Lot]-[Species]-[Cycle] — example: EF-GAB-001-TOMATO-C1.

Coding system under reflection.