Know your men and women farmers: Ensuring host farmers in participatory trials represent heterogeneity within the target environment

Cairns Jill E., Zaman-Allah Mainassara, Baudron Frédéric, Voss Rachel C., Hassall Kirsty L., Euler Michael, Amondo Emily, Marenya Paswel P., Prasanna Boddupalli M.. 2025. Know your men and women farmers: Ensuring host farmers in participatory trials represent heterogeneity within the target environment. Plants, People, Planet, 18 p.

https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.70070

Article de revue ; Article de recherche ; Article de revue à facteur d'impact Revue en libre accès total

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Résumé : There is growing interest in participatory varietal selection and gender-responsive breeding in research and development initiatives. On-farm testing is increasingly used to ensure that new varieties perform within the target environments. However, there are few established approaches for selecting host women and men farmers who reflect the diversity of the overall target population of smallholder farmers. This study sought to evaluate ex-post if recruited farmers within a participatory breeding network in Zimbabwe were representative of the surveyed population and pilot an approach to developing comprehensive farm typologies to ensure more gender-responsive and socially inclusive breeding. A sample of over 2,000 randomly selected women and men farmers, including those hosting breeding trials, were surveyed. A typology was constructed to group farms with similar characteristics associated with household demographics, maize production and resource endowments. This facilitated the subsample of trial-hosting farmers characteristics to be compared with the broader typology. The distribution of farm types selected by extension agents to host trials closely reflected the distribution of farm types within the surveyed population. Two farm types associated with women household heads and three types associated with men-headed households were identified, highlighting the heterogeneity within these groups. Other important factors of differentiation included farm assets, livestock ownership and maize production features. Sampling strategies that explicitly incorporate agronomic and socio-economic diversity within the target population should be used in the selection of host women and men farmers for participatory research to ensure appropriate gender and social inclusion.

Mots-clés Agrovoc : enquête sur les exploitations agricoles, petite exploitation agricole, recherche participative, approche participative, sélection variétale participative, femme, exploitation agricole familiale, enquête, système d'exploitation agricole, essai de variété, sélection, bovin, approche séxospécifique, typologie

Mots-clés géographiques Agrovoc : Zimbabwe

Mots-clés libres : Farm typology, Gender-responsive breeding, Intersectionality, Participatory research, Participatory varietal selection, Smallholder farmers, Social inclusion, Women-headed household

Agences de financement hors UE : Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, United States Agency for International Development, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers

Projets sur financement : (USA) Accelerating Genetic Gains, (USA) FarmSelect, (USA) 1000FARMS, (GBR) Addressing malnutrition with biofortified maize in Zimbabwe: from crop management to policy and consumers

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