Organic farmers face many disadvantaging and marginalizing factors in their agricultural practices. Participatory plant breeding (PPB) is a method of crop breeding that pairs farmers' knowledge with the skills of formal plant breeders to bolster the insights generated by each partner. This study examines the potential of PPB programs to benefit Canadian organic farmers through a case study of the first-ever national PPB program. This study adopts a political ecology approach to analyse how PPB better meets the needs of organic farmers, compared to the dominant industrial seed systems. Farmers identified the networks and collaboration derived from the program to be as important as the actual materials developed. They also expressed the need for consistent institutional funding for PPB and organic agronomy. These findings will allow improvements to be made to the structure and methodologies of existing and new PPB programs to the benefit of all stakeholders.