Berber Kramer, Carol Waweru Smallholder farmers are both producers and consumers, often growing what they eat. That said, can we accelerate varietal turnover by increasing farmers’ interest in consuming a new variety and indirectly increase their interest in producing that variety? A team of researchers in the Behavioral Intelligence Work Package of the CGIAR Initiative on Market Intelligence has set
Pieter Rutsaert, Biswanath Das, Jason Donovan, Lila Train Social science in CGIAR has a history of providing feedback and recommendations to crop breeding programs on seed product design. However, coordination between the social and biological sides has been challenged by two key factors: (1) lack of a common language to integrate market intelligence findings into the design of new seed
(Photo: Seed marketing workshop participants, Nairobi, 22 November ,2022) Pieter Rutsaert, Pauline Muindi, Jason Donovan In the case of hybrid maize, local and privately owned seed companies design new seed products and distribute them to farmers, who are important market intelligence clients. Local maize seed companies typically lack marketing departments capable of generating market intelligence, and affordable market intelligence services
Jhoanne Ynion, Marie Claire Custodio, Matty Demont Despite the continuous introduction of new rice varieties, farmers persist in cultivating old and popular varieties susceptible to pests and diseases. Data from Investment Game Application (IGA) experiments and the Global Market Intelligence Platform (GloMIP) provide insights on farmers’ trait priorities that can help design target product profiles (TPPs) that support breeding programs
Diego Naziri, Thi Minh Hang Vu, Viet Phu Tu, Reuben Ssali, Julius Juma Okello, Hannele Lindqvist-Kreuze, Vivian Polar Vietnam is the largest sweetpotato producer in South-eastern Asia. It is also Asia’s 3rd-largest sweetpotato producer (after China and Indonesia) and the world’s 10th largest producer. In Vietnam, sweetpotato is the most widely cultivated food crop after rice and maize. Some 20
With water sources dwindling and harsher climate conditions on the rise, farmers in the developing world need both better crop varieties and improved water management practices. This World Water Day, CGIAR Genetic Innovation’s operations expert Gustavo Teixeira explores how crop breeding success is bound to water use. The world relies on water for agriculture, energy and industry. And each
In mid-February, a dedicated gathering of biometricians and quantitative genetics experts from CGIAR’s Centers convened in Nairobi for a week-long hackathon. Their mission? To refine CGIAR’s Breeding Analytics Pipeline, a cutting-edge tool designed to guide decision-making processes in global crop breeding. With a plethora of algorithms and software available for analyzing crop breeding data, harmonization and automation across CGIAR-NARES breeding
By Sharifah Syed Alwee, Senior Director, Breeding and Research Services In February, Breeding Resources Initiative’s full team convened in Nairobi, Kenya, to reflect on our accomplishments in 2023 and plan for the future. This is the first time we meet face-to-face as a full team and here are five key-takeaways from our meeting. 1. We are embracing the transition to