Varietal Identification in Household Surveys : Results from an Experiment Using DNA Fingerprinting of Sweet Potato Leaves in Southern Ethiopia
Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) varieties have important nutritional differences and there is strong interest to identify nutritionally superior varieties for dissemination. In agricultural household surveys, this information is often collected base...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/09/26764732/varietal-identification-household-surveys-results-experiment-using-dna-fingerprinting-sweet-potato-leaves-southern-ethiopia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25057 |
| Summary: | Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) varieties
have important nutritional differences and there is strong
interest to identify nutritionally superior varieties for
dissemination. In agricultural household surveys, this
information is often collected based on the farmer's
self-report. However, recent evidence has demonstrated the
inherent difficulties in correctly identifying varieties
from self-report information. This study examines the
accuracy of self-report information on varietal
identification from a data capture experiment on sweet
potato varieties in southern Ethiopia. Three household-based
methods of identifying varietal adoption are tested against
the benchmark of DNA fingerprinting: (A) elicitation from
farmers with basic questions for the most widely planted
variety; (B) farmer elicitation on five sweet potato
phenotypic attributes by showing a visual-aid protocol; and
(C) enumerator recording observations on five sweet potato
phenotypic attributes using a visual-aid protocol and
visiting the field. The reference being the DNA
fingerprinting, about 30 percent of improved varieties were
identified as local or non-improved, and 20 percent of
farmers identified a variety as local when it was in fact
improved. The variety names given by farmers delivered
inconsistent and fuzzy varietal identities. The visual-aid
protocols employed in methods B and C were better than
method A, but still way below the adoption estimates given
by the DNA fingerprinting method. The findings suggest that
estimating the adoption of improved varieties with methods
based on farmer self-reports is questionable, and point
toward a wider use of DNA fingerprinting, likely to become
the gold standard for crop varietal identification. |
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