Misidentification by farmers of the crop varieties they grow: Lessons from DNA fingerprinting of wheat in Ethiopia

Abstract

Accurate identification of crop varieties grown by farmers is crucial, among others, for crop management, food security and varietal development and dissemination purposes. One may expect varietal identification to be more challenging in the context of developing countries where literacy and education are limited and informal seed systems and seed recycling are common. This paper evaluates the extent to which smallholder farmers misidentify their wheat varieties in Ethiopia and explores the associated factors and their implications. The study uses data from a nationally representative wheat growing sample household survey and DNA fingerprinting of seed samples from 3,884 wheat plots in major wheat growing zones of Ethiopia. 28–34% of the farmers correctly identified their wheat varieties. Correct identification was positively associated with farmer education and seed purchases from trusted sources (cooperatives or known farmers) and negatively associated with seed recycling. Farmers’ varietal identification thereby is problematic and leads to erroneous results in adoption and impact assessments. DNA fingerprinting can enhance varietal identification but remains mute in the identification of contextual and explanatory factors. Thus, combining household survey and DNA fingerprinting approaches is needed for reliable varietal adoption and impact assessments, and generate useful knowledge to inform policy recommendations related to varietal replacement and seed systems development.

Ethiopia’s transforming wheat landscape: tracking variety use through DNA fingerprinting

“…These results imply that variety use studies reliant solely on farmer recall are likely to be unreliable and potentially misleading. Jaleta et al 42 in a related paper, provide a detailed investigation on associated factors linked to farmer variety misidentification in Ethiopia and their implications. Consequently, adoption estimates may be incorrect and estimated impacts based on these adoption estimates could be questionable leading to misleading policy implications 26 , 43 .…”

“…Consequently, adoption estimates may be incorrect and estimated impacts based on these adoption estimates could be questionable leading to misleading policy implications 26 , 43 . Whilst DNA fingerprinting provides more accurate varietal identification, it does not identify contextual and explanatory factors; hence, a combination of household survey and DNA fingerprinting approaches is recommended for reliable varietal adoption and impact assessments 42 .…”

Adoption of improved grains legumes and dryland cereals crop varieties: A synthesis of evidence

“…While adoption surveys are likely (at least in general) preferable to soliciting expert opinion, recent studies comparing results obtained from farmer self-reporting and DNA analysis of seed samples obtained from farmers' fields reveal high levels of inconsistency with respect to the former (cf. Jaleta et al, 2020;Maredia et al, 2016). DNA fingerprinting is the only reliable identification method for many crops (Milne et al, 2015).…”

Mungbean in Southeast Asia and East Africa: varieties, practices and constraints

“…The advantage of the expert elicitation method is the relatively low cost of covering large geographical areas as shown by this study covering 0.8 million ha spread over nine countries. It would have been unrealistic to do this using DNA fingerprinting, although this may become easier in the future as costs decrease and new methods become available [46,47]. Another advantage is the participatory nature of the method as estimates are made by local experts themselves while the researchers facilitate the process.…”