Can agricultural citizen science improve seed systems? The contributions of crowdsourcing participatory variety selection through on-farm triadic comparisons of technologies

Bessette, G (2018) Can agricultural citizen science improve seed systems? The contributions of crowdsourcing participatory variety selection through on-farm triadic comparisons of technologies. Technical Report. ICRISAT.

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Research Program : Innovation Systems for the Drylands (ISD)

Additional Information

This review report was undertaken as part of, and funded by, the CGIAR Research Program on Grain Legumes and Dryland Cereals (GLDC) and supported by CGIAR Fund Donors (www.cgiar.org/funders). It is a contribution to the CGIAR GLDC research program and, more specifically, to the work on improving the functionality of seed systems co-led by ICRISAT and Bioversity International. The report builds on research led by Jacob van Etten of Bioversity International, one of the pioneers and main developers of the TRICOT methodology. Jacob facilitated the interaction with the researchers who have experimented with the TRICOT methodology and with its data management platform. Several of them contributed to the review study. Ronnie Vernooy and Jacob van Etten reviewed the drafts of this study and offered valuable comments and suggestions. I thank them for their essential contribution to the study. The opinions expressed are those of the consultant only. I also thank the researchers who contributed their time and insight to the survey and Skype interviews conducted for this study. Specific thanks go to Dr. Silvana Maselli, Jeske van de Gevel, Mirna Barrios, José Gabriel Suchini, Sahira Tello, Bizuayehu Atnafu, Ann Ritah Nanyonjo, Nicole Demers, Mersha Tezera, Preeti Mishra, Monika Messmer, Happy Daudi, and Zerihun Abebe. Final thanks go to Ronnie Vernooy for making the publication of this review report possible and to Kathleen Sheridan for the English text editing.

Abstract

Using on-farm triadic comparisons of technologies (tricot) for crowdsourcing participatory variety selection is a new citizen–science methodology for agriculture. Developed by Bioversity International as part of a programme known as Seeds for Needs, it allows large numbers of farmers to test different technologies on their farms. Farmers receive packages of seeds with a different combination of three different varieties, randomly selected from a large and diverse set of varieties to be tested. They submit their feedback in simple format, ranking the ‘best / middle / worst’ of each package for different traits. These farmer-generated data are then combined with environmental and socioeconomic data and analyzed with specific, novel statistical methods for ranking. Based on a review of several years of crowdsourcing experience in countries around the world, this report summarizes the different features and contributions of the tricot methodology to improve the functionality of seed systems.

Item Type: Monograph (Technical Report)
Divisions: Research Program : Innovation Systems for the Drylands (ISD)
CRP: CGIAR Research Program on Grain Legumes and Dryland Cereals (GLDC)
Uncontrolled Keywords: tricot methodology, variety recommendations, on-farm triadic comparisons, seed systems
Subjects: Others
Depositing User: Mr Ramesh K
Date Deposited: 23 Jul 2019 06:41
Last Modified: 08 Jan 2021 07:12
URI: http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/11180
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