PARTICIPATORY VARIETAL SELECTION IN LOWLAND SORGHUM IN EASTERN ETHIOPIA: IMPACT ON ADOPTION AND GENETIC DIVERSITY

Abstract

Farmers' Participatory Varietal Evaluation (PVE) was conducted on sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) crops in the Kile-Bisidimo plains of eastern Ethiopia for three consecutive years, 1995–1997. The study aimed at providing farmers with alternatives to their landrace to enable them to overcome crop losses and to identify farmers' varietal selection criteria for inclusion in future breeding work. In 1995 constraints and opportunities in sorghum growing and farmers' varietal matching characteristics were identified through an informal survey. This was followed by a search for varieties and acquisitions of seed. Subsequently, eight varieties were evaluated of which five varieties were released and three were at the pre-release stage.

In 1996 and 1997 farmer-managed on-farm trials were conducted and farmers evaluated the performance of the experimental varieties against a locally grown cultivar. Through pairwise and matrix ranking, farmers' selection criteria were listed, preferred varieties identified and initiatives taken to diffuse the varieties through the local seed system. Out of the eight varieties that research workers considered the best, farmers selected only three. The study negated the generally accepted view that farmers in lowland areas of eastern Ethiopia are reluctant to grow short-duration varieties. The selection and introduction of three new varieties into a farming system where farmers were growing only one local variety reconfirmed PVE to be a means for enhancing adoption and increasing genetic diversity. The study also confirmed that increasing farmers' access to their preferred varieties would result in a faster rate of diffusion through farmer-to-farmer seed exchange.