Gender mainstreaming in sweet potato breeding in Uganda
Purpose: In Uganda, sweet potato is typically a “women’s crop” grown by smallholder farmers for food and income. Farmers value sweet potato for its early maturity, resilience to stresses, and minimal input requirements. However, productivity remains low despite the effort of breeding programs to int...
| Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Formato: | Ponencia |
| Lenguaje: | Inglés |
| Publicado: |
International Potato Center
2023
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| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/136926 |
| _version_ | 1855513190530547712 |
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| author | Ssali, Reuben T. Mayanja, Sarah Nakitto, Mariam Mwende, Janet Tinyiro, Samuel Edgar Bayiyana, Irene Okello, Julius Forsythe, Lora Magala, Damalie Yada, Benard Mwanga, Robert O. Polar, Vivian |
| author_browse | Bayiyana, Irene Forsythe, Lora Magala, Damalie Mayanja, Sarah Mwanga, Robert O. Mwende, Janet Nakitto, Mariam Okello, Julius Polar, Vivian Ssali, Reuben T. Tinyiro, Samuel Edgar Yada, Benard |
| author_facet | Ssali, Reuben T. Mayanja, Sarah Nakitto, Mariam Mwende, Janet Tinyiro, Samuel Edgar Bayiyana, Irene Okello, Julius Forsythe, Lora Magala, Damalie Yada, Benard Mwanga, Robert O. Polar, Vivian |
| author_sort | Ssali, Reuben T. |
| collection | Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace) |
| description | Purpose: In Uganda, sweet potato is typically a “women’s crop” grown by smallholder farmers for food and income. Farmers value sweet potato for its early maturity, resilience to stresses, and minimal input requirements. However, productivity remains low despite the effort of breeding programs to introduce new varieties. Low uptake of new varieties is partly attributed to previous focus by breeders on agronomic traits and much less on quality traits and the diverse preferences of men and women in sweet potato value chains. Method: To address this gap, breeders, food scientists, and social scientists (including gender specialists) systematically mainstreamed gender into the breeding program. This multidisciplinary approach, grounded in examining gender roles and their relationship with varietal and trait preferences, integrated important traits into product profiles. Results: Building on earlier efforts of participatory plant breeding and participatory varietal selection, new interventions revealed subtle but important gender differences in preferences. For instance, in a study for the RTBfoods project, women prioritized mealiness, sweetness, firmness and nonfibrous boiled roots. These were further subjected to a rigorous gender analysis using the G+ product profile query tool (Ashby and Polar, 2021; CGIAR 2021). The breeding pipelines then incorporated these gender-responsive priority quality traits, prompting the development of standard operating procedures to phenotype the PQTs. Conclusion: The product advancement and joint decision-making meetings have further positioned sweet potato breeding to better respond to the varying needs and preferences of the users |
| format | Ponencia |
| id | CGSpace136926 |
| institution | CGIAR Consortium |
| language | Inglés |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| publishDateRange | 2023 |
| publishDateSort | 2023 |
| publisher | International Potato Center |
| publisherStr | International Potato Center |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | CGSpace1369262025-11-06T14:14:02Z Gender mainstreaming in sweet potato breeding in Uganda Ssali, Reuben T. Mayanja, Sarah Nakitto, Mariam Mwende, Janet Tinyiro, Samuel Edgar Bayiyana, Irene Okello, Julius Forsythe, Lora Magala, Damalie Yada, Benard Mwanga, Robert O. Polar, Vivian gender agriculture research plant breeding sweet potatoes Purpose: In Uganda, sweet potato is typically a “women’s crop” grown by smallholder farmers for food and income. Farmers value sweet potato for its early maturity, resilience to stresses, and minimal input requirements. However, productivity remains low despite the effort of breeding programs to introduce new varieties. Low uptake of new varieties is partly attributed to previous focus by breeders on agronomic traits and much less on quality traits and the diverse preferences of men and women in sweet potato value chains. Method: To address this gap, breeders, food scientists, and social scientists (including gender specialists) systematically mainstreamed gender into the breeding program. This multidisciplinary approach, grounded in examining gender roles and their relationship with varietal and trait preferences, integrated important traits into product profiles. Results: Building on earlier efforts of participatory plant breeding and participatory varietal selection, new interventions revealed subtle but important gender differences in preferences. For instance, in a study for the RTBfoods project, women prioritized mealiness, sweetness, firmness and nonfibrous boiled roots. These were further subjected to a rigorous gender analysis using the G+ product profile query tool (Ashby and Polar, 2021; CGIAR 2021). The breeding pipelines then incorporated these gender-responsive priority quality traits, prompting the development of standard operating procedures to phenotype the PQTs. Conclusion: The product advancement and joint decision-making meetings have further positioned sweet potato breeding to better respond to the varying needs and preferences of the users 2023-10-10 2024-01-04T12:46:23Z 2024-01-04T12:46:23Z Presentation https://hdl.handle.net/10568/136926 en Open Access application/pdf International Potato Center Ssali, Reuben T.; Mayanja, Sarah; Nakitto, Mariam; Mwende, Janet; Tinyiro, Samuel Edgar; Bayiyana, Irene; Okello, Julius; Forsythe, Lora; Magala, Damalie; Yada, Benard; Mwanga, Robert O.; Polar, Vivian. 2023. Gender mainstreaming in sweet potato breeding in Uganda. Presentation. Presented at the CGIAR GENDER Conference 'From Research to Impact: Towards just and resilient agri-food systems', New Delhi, India, 9-12 October 2023. International Potato Center |
| spellingShingle | gender agriculture research plant breeding sweet potatoes Ssali, Reuben T. Mayanja, Sarah Nakitto, Mariam Mwende, Janet Tinyiro, Samuel Edgar Bayiyana, Irene Okello, Julius Forsythe, Lora Magala, Damalie Yada, Benard Mwanga, Robert O. Polar, Vivian Gender mainstreaming in sweet potato breeding in Uganda |
| title | Gender mainstreaming in sweet potato breeding in Uganda |
| title_full | Gender mainstreaming in sweet potato breeding in Uganda |
| title_fullStr | Gender mainstreaming in sweet potato breeding in Uganda |
| title_full_unstemmed | Gender mainstreaming in sweet potato breeding in Uganda |
| title_short | Gender mainstreaming in sweet potato breeding in Uganda |
| title_sort | gender mainstreaming in sweet potato breeding in uganda |
| topic | gender agriculture research plant breeding sweet potatoes |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/136926 |
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