Working with farmer groups in Uganda to develop new sweet potato cultivars: decentralisation and building on traditional approaches

Abstract

Scientists and farmers in Uganda identified preferred sweet potato: (1) varieties through participatory varietal selection (PVS); and (2) new clones from seedling populations through a participatory plant breeding (PPB) approach. During these two processes, farmers identified 51 attributes of their landraces and of released varieties and used 21 criteria to select clones from amongst the seedling populations. Scientists had, in publications, listed attributes (11 main attributes identified), morphological descriptors (11) of released varieties and varietal needs (23) of sweet potato farmers. One released variety (NASPOT 1) was selected by farmers during PVS, mostly for its high and early yield of large, sweet and mealy roots, and several clones were selected through PPB amongst the seedling populations for a wider range of attributes. Some varietal attributes needed by farmers were not included by scientists either because they were very laborious, for example, selecting on-station for clones suitable for sequential piece-meal harvesting, or because occurrence of important abiotic or biotic stresses such as drought or pest damage were difficult to predict. Farmers seldom mentioned disease resistance but did mention pest resistance, consistent with easy visibility of both the causes of and the damage due to pests. Unlike scientists, farmers made no mention of a need for cultivars to have perceptually distinct features, despite this being a common attribute of landraces of most crops.

Field evaluation of Ugandan sweetpotato germplasm for yield, dry matter and disease resistance

“…Most genotypes had mean specific gravity values of 1.1 to 2.0 and only 11 genotypes had specific gravity values of greater than 2.0 implying medium to high dry matter content. This is possibly a result of farmer selection for high dry matter sweetpotato varieties as observed by Gibson et al (2008). There was significant variation in mean specific gravity values at the sites (Table 2).…”

What Factors Determine Membership to Farmer Groups in Uganda? Evidence from the Uganda Census of Agriculture 2008/9

“…Farmer groups are usually formed to facilitate access to better agricultural technologies, to improve access to better earning markets for produce, facilitate produce transport to markets, for financial security and household investments, access to credit where groups members acts as collateral for each other, to invest in agricultural value addition and milk processing plants and in infrastructural development such as rural roads, small power generation projects, schools and health facilities and also in natural resources management and conservation (Loevinsohn et al, 1994;Mutoro, 1997;Aliguma et al, 2007;Gibson et al, 2008;Nyakaana & Edroma, 2008;UN, 2010;Mwaura et al, 2012;Mbowa et al, 2012).…”

Identification of Farmer Priorities in Potato Production Through Participatory Variety Selection

“…Participatory variety selection (PVS) brings breeders, farmers and social scientists together to identify gaps in the crop adoption process and to target and prioritize traits of importance (Almekinders and Elings 2001;Bellon 2002). PVS is a widely used approach that provides farmers with a choice of genotypes (varieties and advanced materials) that can be evaluated under social and agroecological conditions of relevance to the farmers (Weltzien et al 2000;Almekinders and Elings 2001;Gibson et al 2008). PVS has proven helpful when breeders want to improve upon the rate of improved variety adoption (Almekinders and Elings 2001;Mulatu and Zelleke 2002;Bellon 2002;Danial et al 2007), and for ascertaining gender differences in selection criteria (Bellon 2002;Vom Brocke et al 2010).…”