Farmers' Breeding of Sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] in the Center of Diversity, Ethiopia: II. Selection Process, Criteria and Methods

ABSTRACT

Sorghum is one of the main staple crops of the world's poorest and most food-insecure people. Ethiopia being the center of origin and diversity, farmer breeding is an established system in the region. As of 1957, Formal Breeding (FOB) has released over 16 varieties. Of these, seven were from introduction and nine were from selections of landraces. The farmers did not accept the varieties developed for the intermediate and highland areas. Adoption of improved varieties is only in the lowlands and was only 12.7%. This low level of adoption was due to a lack of appropriate varieties and dissemination system that caters to socio-economic and biophysical environments of the farmers. To bridge this gap, understanding farmer breeding process, methods, selection, criteria and environments becomes imperative. To understand these, various research methods were employed. These were focus group interviews with 360 farmers, direct on-farm participatory monitoring with 120 farmers, key informant interviews with 60 farmers and development agents; and semi-structured interviews with 250 farmers. The farmer breeding (FAB) develops multipurpose varieties that have been accepted by a majority of the farmers. In eastern Ethiopia, FAB is enhanced by the high on-farm genetic diversity. The various selection criteria identified by crop ecologies and farmer needs to be used by the formal Breeding (FOB). Farmers use four different breeding methods; namely, introduction, which is the selection method used across farmers; simple mass selection, modified mass selection, modified bulk selection, and pureline selection are practised by 50%, 6.4%, 5.2% and 46% of the farmers, respectively. Besides directional, disruptive and abruptive selection modalities are in use by the farmers for various traits. Farmers undertake both negative and positive selection. The number of heads selected varied by farm size. Besides, selecting for number of heads, 43.8% of the farmers selected uniform head types, and 45% mixed, whereas 14.5% selected uniform and mixed head types, depending on the selection methods used. The types of sorghum needed by all cropping systems are not the same. Hence, specific varieties have been selected by the farmers to fit into different cropping systems. In summary, some of FAB practices need to be adopted by FOB for developing acceptable varieties.

KEYWORDS:

• Ala
• farmer breeding
• formal breeding
• kera
• multipurpose variety
• selection criteria
• selection methods
• selection modality

Acknowledgements

I thank the farmers of eastern Ethiopia for their participation and sharing their ideas and knowledge on the different aspects of farmer breeding. I am grateful to the research and field assistants who assisted with the interviews with farmers and field and laboratory work. Thanks also go to various NGOs and GOs that helped in the various aspects of the fieldwork. Norwegian State Education Loan Fund and CGIAR (Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) Participatory Research and Gender Analysis (PRGA) Small Grant Program financed this research. I thank both organizations for funding the project. The support provided by Haramaya University for the research work in Ethiopia is appreciated. Due thanks goes to the reviewers.

Notes

Plant Genetic Resources Centre/Ethiopia. (1986). Ten years of collection, conservation and utilization, 1976–86. PGRC/E, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.