Crowdsourcing crop improvement for climate change adaptation: Bioversity´s recent

experiences with citizen science

Jacob van Etten

What is the problem we try to address?

Climate change / variability requires different varieties

Opportunities for spreading risk among varietiesNew varieties as climate shifts

But access to diverse varieties through formal channels is still limiting in many cases

Why don´t have farmers not have more access to varieties?

Seed producers• Incentives to produce only few varieties• Lack of information on seed demand

Farmers• Lack of information about available varieties• Seeing is believing / learning by doing

Solutions

Participatory variety selection

Farmer experimental groups with a common plot with different varieties

Misiko (2013)

Limitations…

Crowdsourcing

Citizen science approach

Individual farmers get free seed samples and observe them grow

Farmers provide feedback by mobile phones

Evaluation card Unique code: 8181

Germination:_______Yield:___________Etc. _____________________________________________________________

1

2

3

8181

1

2

3

Registration cardUnique code: 8181

Name:____________GPS:_____________________________________________________________________________

+ -A > C > DA > D > G

A>C>D>G

Software prototype

Data analysis

Some preliminary conclusions

Farmer like to participate: curiosity, access to seed

Most farmers are ready to answer by phone, but some problems with access

Data quality is good enough

The method is easy to implement but is (still) paper intensive

Women can be involved through women groups

Need to experiment with Interactive Voice Response systems

In summary…

4. Farmers test and report back by mobile phone

5. Farmers receive tailored variety recommendations and can order seed

2. Each farmer gets a different combination of varieties

3. Environmental data (GPS, sensors) to assess adaptation

1. A broad set of varieties (10-50) is evaluated6. Data are used

to detect demand for new varieties and traits

Thank you

j.vanetten@cgiar.org