b"maintenance, Van Etten says that citizenately adds a level of difficulty and confu-science data is about half the cost of asion that hinders results and sometimes data point from a normal trial.makes reporting impossible. You don't need to be there, vanThe tricot approach also allows Etten says. You can call the farmer andfor inclusion of smaller farmers in the get a lot of data in a very short periodresearch process. This is critical in regions without driving around. where a vast majority of farmland is man-While optimal management, repro- aged by small subsistence farmers. ducible trials at research stations areThe bigger the plots, the more still important, citizen science results inyou exclude farmers who have small diverse conditions. Rather than being afarms and small plots, van Etten says. negative, that diversity can be a welcomeFrequently that's women but it also benefit.excludes any poor households. Climate change is real, says StephenThe tricot approach is used beyond Angudubo, the on-farm trial networkharvest as well. The product is taken coordinator with Alliance Bioversity to the kitchen and tested for how well CIAT. In Uganda, the intensity of itsSergio Puerto is a PhD candidate in Appliedit cooks or converts to flour and flour effects is varied across regions. SomeEconomics at Cornell University.products. Regional preferences for color, closer to South Sudan, Ethiopia andPHOTO: SERGIO PUERTO taste and texture can all be assessed Kenya are arid and face more of thewhen deciding if a variety suits a par-adverse effects of climate change.ticular growing region. Researchers can As such, localized trials are critical. get input from all family members who The wetter areas can face challenges,interact with the crop from seed to table, too, as excessive rain can result in the rot- allowing information to be gathered on ting of crops. Finding varieties that allowhow gender or task division affects vari-for resilience through these and otherety preference. challenges helps increase food security.Participating farmers are encour-We want to look at this diversity andaged to share their favorite varieties how (the varieties) work when you applywith others. In most cases, adding these it in practice, van Etten says. We're notnew varieties to a communitys farm-breeding for the station. We're breedinging toolkit results in increased yields, for real farming systems. which means increased food security With [conventional] on-farm testingand additional income for farmers who approaches, there might be six groupssell rather than consuming all of their across the nation and each group mightproduct. Together, these result not only in have 20-30 trials, Angudubo adds. Witheconomic and social benefit, but genuine the tricot approach, we have hundredsexcitement.of farmers evaluating these in smallerThe tricot approach can be used at gardens, which are manageable by theA farmer from southern Costa Ricathe end of a breeding program (late-checking the bags of seed as part of farmer. They evaluate these varietiesPuertos experiment. The farmer isstage testing) to have end users test throughout the growing season up tocomparing two seed varieties, with thevarieties and aid in the approval process harvest.evaluation score card from the Tricot trialfor release. It can also be used for the on the floor. PHOTO: SERGIO PUERTO promotion of seeds in already released The Power of Three crop varieties to assess their suitability for Consistency is a challenge with citizenvarieties to grow on their land. They thenspecific regions.science data collection. Direct measure- report their preferences and observations ments may be taken accurately, but col- of any variables the researchers want toTricot in Action in Ethiopialecting qualitative data requires trainingexamine using a very simple three optionGareth Borman, a Seed System Advisor and usually results in errors. To avoid this,ranking system. Why three? Results areat Wageningen University, focuses on van Etten turned to ranking. simply a ranking of first, second, or third,seed systems development in low- and Ranking is a robust way of convertingusually by using easily qualified terms likemiddle-income countries. He explained an observation into something that canbest, mid, worst, or tallest, mid, short- that professionally developed seeds dont be analyzed statistically, he explains.est. Van Etten says while nearly anyonealways make it to the commercial sector For the tricot trials, farmers across acan efficiently rank using a three-choicedue to the biology of the crop, econom-range of locations are given three seedsystem, adding a fourth choice immedi- ics or legislation. LATAMSEEDWORLD.COM /25"