Targeting market segment needs with public-good crop breeding investments: A case study with potato and sweetpotato focused on poverty alleviation, nutrition and gender

Abstract

Crop breeding programs have often focused on the release of new varieties that target yield improvement to achieve food security and reduce poverty. While continued investments in this objective are justified, there is a need for breeding programs to be increasingly more demand-driven and responsive to the changing customer preferences and population dynamics. This paper analyses the responsiveness of global potato and sweetpotato breeding programs pursued by the International Potato Center (CIP) and its partners to three major development indicators: poverty, malnutrition and gender. The study followed a seed product market segmentation blueprint developed by the Excellence in Breeding platform (EiB) to identify, describe, and estimate the sizes of the market segments at subregional levels. We then estimated the potential poverty and nutrition impacts of investments in the respective market segments. Further, we employed the G+ tools involving multidisciplinary workshops to evaluate the gender-responsiveness of the breeding programs. Our analysis reveals that future investments in breeding programs will achieve greater impacts by developing varieties for market segments and pipelines that have more poor rural people, high stunting rates among children, anemia prevalence among women of reproductive age, and where there is high vitamin A deficiency. In addition, breeding strategies that reduce gender inequality and enhance appropriate change of gender roles (hence gender transformative) are also required.

Decision tree scoring system to guide selection for consumer preference in sweetpotato breeding trials

“…For example, women in Uganda have a unique role to select and prepare food for household consumption, constitute a big proportion of sweetpotato farmers and retailers and own small-scale businesses including local restaurants and food shelters. 30 Breeding sweetpotato for sensory characteristics would ease food preparation, and enhance profit margins by increasing their market share. 30 Generally, consumers in Kamuli showed a more positive response to the samples than those in Hoima as indicated by the higher consumer liking ratings and bigger proportion of respondents perceiving samples to have appropriate intensities of sweetness, firmness and mealiness.…”

“…30 Breeding sweetpotato for sensory characteristics would ease food preparation, and enhance profit margins by increasing their market share. 30 Generally, consumers in Kamuli showed a more positive response to the samples than those in Hoima as indicated by the higher consumer liking ratings and bigger proportion of respondents perceiving samples to have appropriate intensities of sweetness, firmness and mealiness. The proportion of consumers who perceived none of the sweetpotato genotypes to be excessive in sweetness, firmness or mealiness was small as illustrated by the JAR scale findings.…”

“…The present study builds on previous work 16,28 that developed and refined the first sweetpotato product profile. As a follow‐up, the G+ Product Profile Query Tool (G+PP) 29,30 was applied to assess the potential positive and negative impact that breeding for sensory characteristics could have on women and men. The tool was programmed in CSPro (United States Census Bureau; http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/cspro) and participants analyzed the characteristics individually on tablets.…”

Assessment of consumers’ preference for orange‐fleshed sweet potato puree chapati: a case of rural and urban consumers in Kenya

“…The puree yields healthier products since its preparation involves more nutrientconserving methods such as steaming/boiling than smashing the OFSP, which retain ⊎-carotene content at about 90%, with enhanced color and desired microbial properties that preserve the quality of baked products. 6,7 According to Malavi et al, 8 incorporating OFSP puree into baked products like bread improves their texture, making them easier to chew and digest. Moreover, studies in the SSA region have shown that it is economically feasible to use OFSP puree as a substitute for wheat flour compared to OFSP flour.…”

“…In addition, it reduces the amount of money spent on wheat flour. The puree yields healthier products since its preparation involves more nutrient‐conserving methods such as steaming/boiling than smashing the OFSP, which retain β‐carotene content at about 90%, with enhanced color and desired microbial properties that preserve the quality of baked products 6,7 . According to Malavi et al ., 8 incorporating OFSP puree into baked products like bread improves their texture, making them easier to chew and digest.…”