Farmers take the lead in shaping CGIAR crop innovations through the Tricot methodology

  • From
    Breeding for Tomorrow
  • Published on
    27.10.25

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Harvest Tricot Experiment in Karatu, Tanzania. Credits: Mabel Nabateragga.

When the rain finally came to her village in Tanzania, Mariam didn’t just plant her usual variety of beans. That season, she tried three different ones – side by side, on her own land. By harvest, one plot clearly stood out: better yield, stronger against disease, and with good taste and marketability. Mariam didn’t learn this from a lab or brochure. She discovered it herself, through a simple trial, part of a CGIAR global effort that puts farmers at the center of crop innovation. 

“Farmer researchers” as co-innovators

For decades, CGIAR and partners have worked to ensure that new crop varieties are not only high yielding, but also relevant and resilient, meeting the needs of farmers like Mariam. One way to achieve this is participatory variety selection, where farmers test and select potential new varieties in their own fields, providing direct feedback to breeders, based on their specific needs and context.  

But an updated approach has taken this idea much further. 

The Triadic Comparison of Technologies (Tricot) approach invites farmers to test three crop varieties at once, compare their performance, and rank them for several criteria using smartphones. Beyond data collection, this method empowers farmers to act as co-researchers, generating large volumes of data from many small trials, providing a clear understanding of how varieties perform in diverse environments.  

“The Tricot approach makes it possible for thousands of farmers to share what works best for them, quickly, accurately, and at scale,” says Jacob van Etten, 1000FARMS. “Instead of testing new varieties in large, uniform research plots, Tricot allows them to be evaluated directly in farmers’ fields, under real-life conditions and management practices. This way, farmers become true co-researchers, testing and validating promising varieties and technologies in the contexts that matter most,” van Etten added.

From pilot to global

What began as an experiment in Latin America has grown into a global participatory network. Tricot has now been applied in 21 countries, from India and Ethiopia to Nigeria and Cameroon, and adapted to a wide range of crops: including wheat, cassava, potato, and maize. Examples of success are numerous.  

In India, a 2021 evaluation showed how the Tricot methodology increased farm-level diversity, productivity, and resilience to shocks. In Uganda, the same approach helped fast-track the registration of a new potato variety after strong farmer feedback. And in West Africa, cassava farmers used Tricot to test new varieties of gari-eba food products across different cultural and environmental settings.

Data that grows with the climate

Behind this work is 1000FARMS, a platform of the CGIAR – national agricultural research and extension systems (NARES) network. 1000FARMS connects partners conducting Tricot trials at hundreds of farm sites, each collecting data on crop performance, farmer preferences, local weather and socioeconomic aspects such as participants’ age and gender. 

This growing dataset helps breeders ensure that new varieties are not only successful in research stations but also farmer-preferred and climate-adapted in the real world. Over the past three years, 1000Farms has clearly demonstrated that it is possible to generate reliable, large-scale data on farm performance and farmer preferences at low cost. As a result, on-farm, scalable variety evaluation using methods such as Tricot is becoming a necessary step in all CGIAR-NARES breeding processes.

A new chapter: Breeding for Tomorrow

Building on the 1000Farms project, CGIAR Breeding for Tomorrow is working with all CGIAR-NARES breeding programs to incorporate on farm variety performance and farmer preference, using methods such as Tricot, as a critical step prior to variety registration and release. 

“We truly recognize the outstanding work carried out by 1000FARMS, which we will now build on,” said Biswanath Das, Enable Lead, during a recent progress meeting in Zimbabwe. “It’s shown that large-scale on-farm testing isn’t a ‘nice-to-have’: it’s fundamental to breeding programs, and it will now be part of every breeding pipeline. Methodologies like Tricot are providing valuable feedback directly from farmers, the end-users of breeding innovations, helping breeders refine product design and ensure that the next generation of varieties is even better aligned with farmers’ needs.” 

This upcoming work will ensure that farmer-led testing becomes a standard part of CGIAR variety development, not just a final validation step.

From late-stage testing to future ideas

The Tricot methodology is inspiring innovation beyond late-stage on-farm testing. In Kenya and Uganda, researchers have adapted the method to test new product concepts, using videos to present different maize hybrid ideas to 2,400 farmers. Their feedback now informs both breeding priorities but also product design, ensuring that future products are developed with farmers from scratch, not just for them.

Conclusion

From Mariam in Tanzania to cassava farms in Nigeria and potato plots in Uganda, the Tricot message is the same: when farmers are partners in innovation, everyone benefits. 

The Tricot approach is more than a research tool: it’s becoming an essential part of CGIAR breeding work. It exemplifies how participatory research, digital tools, and collaboration between CGIAR, NARES, and farmers can transform global food systems from the ground up.

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Main image: Harvest Tricot Experiment in Karatu, Tanzania. Credits: Mabel Nabateragga. Written by Julie Puech. This work contributes to CGIAR Breeding for Tomorrow (B4T) Science Program through its Enable Area of Work.

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