Have you ever considered that bread and pasta are made from different types of wheat? How about the fact that there are thousands of different wheat products consumed around the world, and each one has unique characteristics and processing requirements?
Scientists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) understand that the quality of the final product, be it spaghetti, a loaf of sourdough bread or a tandoori naan, is highly dependent on the quality of the grain and the flour it becomes. Every year, CIMMYT analyzes thousands of wheat lines in detail at its Wheat Quality laboratory to determine the nutritional, processing and end-use quality of the grain. In this short video, CIMMYT’s Wheat Quality lab head Maria Itria Ibba explains exactly what they are looking for and how they find it.
First, CIMMYT scientists test the overall grain quality by analyzing grain weight, density, protein content, moisture content and hardness.
The grains are then milled into flour, which is again analyzed for moisture content, protein content, color and protein quality. Protein quality is especially important to determine the end-use for the type of flour, and CIMMYT conducts several tests to determine this characteristic. Bread and durum wheat flours specifically are analyzed for overall protein quality by checking SDS-sedimentation volume. Mixographs are used to assess the flour’s mixing and absorption characteristics, and alveographs are used to measure dough deformation properties.
At the end of the tests, bread wheat flours are transformed into leavened breads and scored based on the loaf’s volume and crumb quality. Durum wheat flour, used to make Italian-style pasta, is scored based on grain quality, flour yellowness, high protein content and protein quality.
CIMMYT’s work ensures that wheat-derived foods produced in developing countries are nutritious, affordable, and maximize profits for each actor in the value chain.
Cover photo: At CIMMYT’s Wheat Quality lab, researchers evaluate how different bread wheat varieties behave at the time of baking. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Farmer Florence Ochieng harvests green maize on her 105-acre family farm near Kitale, Kenya. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)
Smallholder farmers are often torn between maize seed varieties that have multiple desirable traits. Since they cannot always have it all — there are limits on what traits breeders can integrate in any given variety — they face the dilemma of which seed to pick at the expense of an equally desirable option.
Trait preference trade-offs among maize farmers in western Kenya, published in March 2021, provides evidence of this prioritization and seeks to help breeders, seed companies and other stakeholders set priorities that account for farmers’ needs and their willingness to make preference trade-offs. The researchers evaluated responses from 1,288 male and female farmers in the mid-altitude maize growing areas of western Kenya.
The study argues that farmer-centered seed systems (including seed companies) should be guided by farmers’ priorities and reflect a greater understanding of the tradeoffs these farmers make between traits and varieties. They have two key options, according to Paswel Marenya, the study’s lead researcher and adoption and impact assessment economist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). The first involves prioritizing the critical must-have traits in any one variety. The second option entails having multiple varieties that meet diverse farmers’ needs and then segmenting the seed markets.
While Marenya argues that prioritization is important for balancing commercial realities and farmers’ diverse interests, he is quick to add that “market segmentation has limits imposed by the commercial viability of each segment.”
“At every turn, from breeding to farmer varietal preferences to seed company considerations, there have to be trade-offs, as one cannot keep segmenting the market forever,” Marenya said. “At some point, you must stop and choose what traits to prioritize in your breeding or commercially viable market segments, based on the most pressing challenges already identified.”
CIMMYT researchers conduct interviews in Kenya to determine farmer preferences for maize traits. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Differences in tradeoffs among men and women
From a gender lens, the paper reveals an obvious difference in tradeoffs made by men and women. Whereas the two groups desire some similar traits in their varieties of choice, women seem to be willing to make slightly larger yield sacrifices in favor of tolerance to drought and Striga and good storability. Women also valued good storability over 90-day maturity, while men appeared to place a higher value on the closed tip, a sign of resistance to moisture infiltration which causes grain rotting.
“These results imply that unless the risks of storage or pre-harvest losses are reduced or eliminated, the value of high yielding varieties can be diminished if they are susceptible to production stresses or the grain characteristics make them susceptible to storage pests,” the study states.
The study indicates that farmers may adopt stress tolerant and high yielding varieties with somewhat low storability only if advanced grain storage technologies are available.
Until then, the suggestion to policy makers responsible for maize breeding is to use “multi-criteria evaluations” of new varieties to ensure that traits for stress tolerance and storability are given optimal weighting in variety release decisions.
Additionally, information about farmer preferences should be fed back to breeding programs in national and international institutes responsible for maize genetic improvement.
Mary Nzau enters a mock agrodealer shop set up on a field on the outskirts of Tala town in Machakos County, Kenya. On display are nine 2kg bags of hybrid maize seed. She picks one. By the look of it, her mind is made up. After a quick scan of the shelf, she has in her hand the variety that she has been purchasing for years.
Regina Mbaika Mutua is less lucky. The variety she always buys is not on display in the mock shop. As part of the experiment, the research team has removed from the shelf the variety she indicated she usually buys. The team’s goal is to observe what factors influence her seed purchase decision in the absence of the variety she was expecting to purchase.
“Although I did not find the variety I was looking for, I picked an alternative as I have seen it perform well on a neighboring farm,” Mutua says, adding that she will plant it this season alongside recycled (farm-saved) seed on her one-acre farm.
Michael Mutua passes up the popular variety he has been planting for the previous two years. He picks one that has been advertised extensively on local radio. “I have heard about it severally on radio. I would like to experiment with this new seed and see how it performs on my farm. Should I like the results, I will give it a chance in ensuing seasons,” he says.
Pieter Rutsaert explains the study setup at a mock agrodealer shop. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
The big adoption conundrum
The goal of the out-of-stock study is to improve an understanding of how farmers make their maize seed choices, says Pieter Rutsaert, Markets and Value Chain Specialist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
“We do this by inviting farmers to a mock agrodealer store that we set up in their villages and give them a small budget to purchase a bag of seed. However, not all farmers walk into the same store: some will find their preferred variety, others won’t. Some will have access to additional trait information or see some varieties with price promotions while others don’t.”
Rutsaert acknowledges that breeding programs and their partner seed companies have done a great job at giving farmers access to maize hybrids with priority traits such as drought tolerance and high yield. CIMMYT then works closely with local seed companies to get varieties into the hands of farmers. “We want to extend that support by providing insights to companies and public breeding programs on how to get new varieties more quickly into the hands of farmers,” he says.
Pauline Muindi (left), gender research associate with CIMMYT, acts as a mock agrodealer clerk and attends a farmer. (Photo: CIMMYT)
The hybrid maize seed sector in Kenya is highly competitive. Amid intensifying competition, new varieties face a daunting task breaking into the market, independent of their quality. While farmers now have more options to pick from, a major challenge has been how to get them to adopt new varieties.
“Moving farmers from something they know to something they don’t is not easy. They tend to stick with what they know and have been growing for years,” Rutsaert says.
Pauline Muindi, gender research associate with CIMMYT, acted as the stand-in clerk at the mock store. She noticed that farmers tend to spend very little time in the shop when their preferred variety is available. However, this all changes in the out-of-stock situation, pushing farmers to step out of their comfort zone and explore new options.
The first step to overcoming this challenge is to entice maize farmers to try a new seed variety, even just once, Rutsaert observes. If it is a good variety, farmers will see that and then the market will work in its favor: farmers will come back to that variety in subsequent years and tell others about it.
“The good news is that many of the varieties we are currently seeing on the market have performed well — that’s why they’re popular. But there are newer varieties that are even better, especially in terms of attributes like drought tolerance. We would like to understand how farmers can be convinced to try out these newer varieties. Is it about the need for more awareness on varietal traits? Can we use price promotions? Or are there other factors?” he says.
A researcher interviews Mary Nzau (right), a farmer from Tala town in Machakos County, after her mock purchase. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Does seed price matter?
“With today’s climate uncertainty, it is better to stick to a variety that is adapted to such climate rather than banking on a variety one is oblivious of. The risk is not worth it,” Nzau says. She adds that she would rather buy a higher-priced seed packet she knows and trusts than a lower-priced one that she has not used in the past. Radio promotions of new or other varieties have limited sway over her decision to make the switch.
Faith Voni, another farmer, agrees. “It is better to purchase a higher-priced variety whose quality I can vouch for than risk purchasing a lower-priced one that I know little about. I do not wish to take such a risk.” Voni says she would also be more inclined to experiment with another variety that she had seen perform well on a neighbor’s farm.
Michael Mutua holds a different view. “If there is an option of an equally good but new variety that is lower-priced than the variety I prefer, my wallet decides,” he says.
Vivian Hoffmann, an economist at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and collaborator on the study, says price can be key for convincing consumers to try a new product. “Our previous research on maize flour choice found that a provisional 10 percent discount boosted sales tremendously,” Hoffmann says. “Of course, that only gets your foot in the door; after that, a new variety will need to win farmers over based on its merits.”
Hoffmann is interested in the extent to which drawing farmers’ attention to key varietal attributes influences their seed choice. “This information is generally already available on seed packets, but we live in a world of information overload. Promoting certain attributes through in-store signage is an approach that is widely used to help consumers make more healthier food choices. Doing the same for new seed varieties makes a lot of sense.”
Michael Mutua (left) responds to preliminary questions from one of the research team members before proceeding to make his seed selection at the mock agrodealer shop. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
The value of drought tolerance
Situated on Kenya’s eastern region, Machakos is characterized by persistent water stress. Climate change induced erratic rainfall has pushed traits that can tolerate the unfavorable weather conditions in the favorite’s corner. While other traits such as high yield and disease resistance are equally important, the seed, when planted, must first withstand the effects of droughts or water stress in some seasons and germinate. This is the most crucial step in the long journey to either a decent, bare minimum or no yield. A lot of farmers still plant recycled seed alongside hybrid varieties. But these are no match to water stress conditions, which decimate fields planted with farmer-saved seed.
“If a variety is not climate resilient, I will likely not harvest anything at all,” says Nzau. She has planted a drought-tolerant variety for ten years now. Prior to that, she had planted about three other varieties as well as recycled seed. “The only advantage with recycled seed is that given the right amount of rainfall, they mature fast — typically within two months. This provides my family with an opportunity to eat boiled or roast maize,” she notes.
However, varieties need to do more than just survive harsh weather conditions. Breeders face a daunting task of incorporating as many traits as possible to cater to the overarching and the specific interests of multiple farmers. As Murenga Mwimali, a maize breeder at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) and collaborator in this research says, innovations in breeding technologies are making breeding more efficient.
“It is better to have a diversity of product profiles as different market niches are captured within a particular agroecological zones. This is such that farmers may not just benefit from the minimum traits like drought tolerance, but also more specific traits they are looking for,” Mwimali says.
Smallholder farmers continue to play a central role in the seed development process. Capturing what happens at the point of purchase, for instance, at the agrodealer, and understanding how they purchase seed offers valuable insights on the traits that are deemed essential in the breeding process. This work contributes to CIMMYT’s focus on fast-tracking varietal turnover by turning the levers towards a demand-driven seed system.
Cover photo: Pauline Muindi, gender research associate with CIMMYT, at the mock agrodealer shop where she acted as a clerk. (Photo: CIMMYT)
The pursuit for higher and more stable yields, alongside better stress tolerance, has dominated maize breeding in Africa for a long time. Such attributes have been, and still are, essential in safeguarding the food security and livelihoods of smallholder farmers. However, other essential traits have not been the main priority of breeding strategies: how a variety tastes when cooked, its smell, its texture or its appearance.
They are now gradually coming into the mainstream of maize breeding. Researchers are exploring the sensory characteristics consumers prefer and identifying the varieties under development which have the desired qualities. Breeders may then choose to incorporate specific traits that farmers or consumers value in future breeding work. This research is also helping to accelerate varietal turnover in the last mile, as farmers have additional reasons to adopt newer varieties.
In the last five years, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has been conducting participatory variety evaluations across East Africa. First, researchers invited farmers and purchasers of improved seed in specific agro-ecologies to visit demonstration plots and share their preferences for plant traits they would like to grow in their own farms.
In 2019 and 2020, researchers also started to facilitate evaluations of the sensory aspects of varieties.
Fresh samples of green maize, from early- to late-maturing maize varieties, were boiled and roasted. Then, people assessed their taste and other qualities. The first evaluations of this kind were conducted in Kenya and Uganda in August and September 2019, and another exercise in Kenya’s Machakos County took place in January 2020.
Similar evaluations have looked at the sensory qualities of maize flour. In March 2020, up to 300 farmers in Kenya’s Kakamega County participated in an evaluation of ugali, or maize flour porridge. Participants assessed a wider range of factors, including the aroma, appearance, taste, texture on the hand, texture in the mouth and overall impression. After tasting each variety, they indicated how likely they would be to buy it.
Participants were asked to rate the texture of different maize varieties, cooked as ugali, at a sensory evaluation in Kakamega County, Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Participants were asked to rate the smell of different maize varieties, cooked as ugali, at a sensory evaluation in Kakamega County, Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Participants taste ugali at a sensory evaluation in Kakamega County, Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Cooks prepare ugali, or maize flour porridge, with different maize varieties at a sensory evaluation in Kakamega County, Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
At a sensory evaluation in Kakamega County, Kenya, different types of ugali were cooked using maize flour from several varieties. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Ugali made with different maize varieties is served to participants of a sensory evaluation in Kakamega County, Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Tastes differ
“Farmers not only consume maize in various forms but also sell the maize either at green or dry grain markets. What we initially found is green maize consumers prefer varieties that are sweet when roasted. We also noted that seed companies were including the sensory characteristics in the maize varieties’ product profiles,” explained Bernard Munyua, Research Associate with the Socioeconomics program at CIMMYT. “As breeders and socioeconomists engage more and more with farmers, consumers or end-users, it is apparent that varietal profiles for both plant and sensory aspects have become more significant than ever before, and have a role to play in the successful turnover of new varieties.”
For researchers, this is very useful information, to help determine if it is viable to bring a certain variety to market. The varieties shared in these evaluations include those that have passed through CIMMYT’s breeding pipeline and are allocated to partners for potential release after national performance trials, as well as CIMMYT varieties marketed by various seed companies. Popular commercial varieties regions were also included in the evaluations, for comparison.
A total of 819 people participated in the evaluation exercises in Kenya and Uganda, 54% of them female.
“Currently, there is increasing demand by breeders, donors, and other agricultural scientists to understand the modalities of trait preferences of crops by women and men farmers,” said Rahma Adam, Gender and Development Specialist at CIMMYT.
Bags of seeds with a diversity of maize varieties are displayed before being cooked at a sensory sensory evaluation in Kakamega County, Kenya. (Photo: Bernard Munyua/CIMMYT)
That’s the way I like it
For Gentrix Ligare, from Kakamega County, maize has always been a staple food in her family. They eat ugali almost daily. The one-acre farm that she and her husband own was one of the sites used to plant the varieties ahead of the evaluation exercise. Just like her husband, Fred Ligare, she prefers ugali that is soft but absorbs more water during preparation. “I also prefer ugali that is neither very sticky nor very sweet. Such ugali would be appropriate to eat with any type of vegetable or sauce,” she said.
Fernandes Ambani prefers ugali that emits a distinct aroma while being cooked and should neither be very sweet nor plain tasting. For him, ugali should not be too soft or too hard. While it should not be very sticky, it should also not have dark spots in it. “When I like the taste, smell, texture and appearance of a particular variety when cooked, I would definitely purchase it if I found it on the market,” he said.
While the task of incorporating all the desired or multiple traits in the breeding pipeline could prove complex and costly, giving consumers what they like is one of the essential steps in enhancing a variety’s commercial success in the market, argues Ludovicus Okitoi, Director of Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Organization’s (KALRO) Kakamega Center.
“Despite continuously breeding and releasing varieties every year, some farmers still buy some older varieties, possibly because they have a preference for a particular taste in some of the varieties they keep buying,” Okitoi said. “It is a good thing that socioeconomists and breeders are talking more and more with the farmers.”
Advancements in breeding techniques may help accelerate the integration of multiple traits, which could eventually contribute to quicker varietal turnover.
“Previously, we did not conduct this type of varietal evaluations at the consumer level. A breeder would, for instance, just breed on-station and conduct national performance trials at specific sites. The relevant authorities would then grant their approval and a variety would be released. Things are different now, as you have to go back to the farmer as an essential part of incorporating end-user feedback in a variety’s breeding process,” explained Hugo de Groote, Agricultural Economist at CIMMYT.
The CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB) is looking to provide matching funding (up to US$ 35,000) for two projects with AbacusBio to characterize the users of new crop varieties and identify a value-weighted set of traits to be included as breeding targets in a product profile system.
The winning CGIAR crop breeding program will work directly with AbacusBio with EiB support to deliver on the projects.
This project represents an opportunity for CGIAR members of EiB to take a leap forward in the definition of client-focused variety replacement.
For more details on the project and how to apply, please refer to this page and the project proposal. Applications will be received January through February.
