Crowdsourcing crop improvement for climate change adaptation

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Crowdsourcing crop improvement for climate change adaptation: Bioversity´s recent experiences with citizen science Jacob van Etten

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Presentation at the ICT4Ag conference in Kigali, November 2013

Transcript of Crowdsourcing crop improvement for climate change adaptation

Page 1: Crowdsourcing crop improvement for climate change adaptation

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

experiences with citizen science

Jacob van Etten

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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

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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

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Solutions

Participatory variety selection

Farmer experimental groups with a common plot with different varieties

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Misiko (2013)

Limitations…

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Crowdsourcing

Citizen science approach

Individual farmers get free seed samples and observe them grow

Farmers provide feedback by mobile phones

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Evaluation card Unique code: 8181

Germination:_______Yield:___________Etc. _____________________________________________________________

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8181

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Registration cardUnique code: 8181

Name:____________GPS:_____________________________________________________________________________

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+ -A > C > DA > D > G

A>C>D>G

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Software prototype

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Data analysis

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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

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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

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Thank you

[email protected]