“…Worku et al. [ 21 ] reported that farmers ranked yield, early maturity, ear size, and a number of ears as the most important traits during variety preferences which supports the significance of yield trait and ear weight.…”
“…Worku et al. [ 21 ] reported that farmers ranked yield, early maturity, ear size, and a number of ears as the most important traits during variety preferences which supports the significance of yield trait and ear weight.…”
“…The best entries coming out of this rigorous process are then allocated to public/private sector partners for varietal registration, scale-up, and delivery in the target geographies. This strategy has proved highly successful in developing and deploying impactful products, including a diverse array of improved maize hybrids and open-pollinated varieties (OPVs) adapted to the target markets (Beyene et al 2017a , b ; Cairns and Prasanna 2018 ; Worku et al 2020 ). Fig.…”
Section: Breeding For Climate-resilience In Tropical Maize Germplasmmentioning
Key message
Intensive public sector breeding efforts and public-private partnerships have led to the increase in genetic gains, and deployment of elite climate-resilient maize cultivars for the stress-prone environments in the tropics.
Abstract
Maize (Zea mays L.) plays a critical role in ensuring food and nutritional security, and livelihoods of millions of resource-constrained smallholders. However, maize yields in the tropical rainfed environments are now increasingly vulnerable to various climate-induced stresses, especially drought, heat, waterlogging, salinity, cold, diseases, and insect pests, which often come in combinations to severely impact maize crops. The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), in partnership with several public and private sector institutions, has been intensively engaged over the last four decades in breeding elite tropical maize germplasm with tolerance to key abiotic and biotic stresses, using an extensive managed stress screening network and on-farm testing system. This has led to the successful development and deployment of an array of elite stress-tolerant maize cultivars across sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Further increasing genetic gains in the tropical maize breeding programs demands judicious integration of doubled haploidy, high-throughput and precise phenotyping, genomics-assisted breeding, breeding data management, and more effective decision support tools. Multi-institutional efforts, especially public–private alliances, are key to ensure that the improved maize varieties effectively reach the climate-vulnerable farming communities in the tropics, including accelerated replacement of old/obsolete varieties.
“…Participatory breeding and more specifically participatory varietal selection are one technique that can be used to validate on-station results under farmer conditions thereby guaranteeing widespread adoption of improved new varieties. Farmers derive utility, not just from new varieties, but from specific attributes of a new variety thus participatory evaluation is required to identify traits that are important to farmers (Worku et al, 2020).…”
Despite sustained efforts to promote climate-smart technologies in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), adoption remains low. At the same time, the downside risks associated with climate change and food insecurity are becoming acute. Improved cowpea varieties are climate-smart and contribute to food and nutrition security. Limited evidence exists, however, regarding how cowpea attributes influence adoption. We use a discrete choice experiment to investigate farmers' preferences and mean willingness to pay (WTP) for cowpea variety attributes. Our results show that farmers' decision to adopt improved cowpea varieties increases in response to the following attributes: higher yields, early maturity, and white seed coat colour. The results indicate that 86% of the sampled farmers prefer climate-smart cowpea. Secondly, while we observe a wide dispersion of WTP among female cowpea farmers relative to male cowpea farmers, participation in cowpea training reduces the dispersion of WTP for both men and women. Moreover, controlling for farmer risk aversion further decreases the dispersion of WTP for all respondents. Our experiment reemphasizes the need for crop breeding programmes to be participatory. Moreover, such programmes would do well to satisfy the demands of different segments of the population based on risk, gender, and geographical characteristics.
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