Webinar: “Participatory crop evaluation: Tricot trials on cassava and sweet potato in Nigeria”, 20 February

12 February 2025

Social scientist and gender specialist, Dr Tessy Madu from the National Root Crops Research Institute will join us for our third webinar in the 1000FARMS series on “Participatory crop evaluation: Tricot trials on cassava and sweet potato in Nigeria”.

Date: Thursday 20 February
Time: 15:00–15:30 (CET)

Summary

Dr Tessy Madu is the Director of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation and leads gender studies at the National Root Crops Research Institute, Umudike, Nigeria. Dr Madu develops strategies for measuring, monitoring and evaluating programme performance within the departments, facilitating access to key data sets to drive programmatic and operational decisions. She holds a PhD in Rural Development and her research has a strong focus on gender and development.

Dr Madu will explain the latest research evaluating new cassava and sweet potato genotypes under real-world farming conditions in Nigeria, in collaboration with the National Root Crops Research Institute, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture and the National Varieties Release Committee. Farmers were directly involved in the assessment process as citizen science partners and evaluated three varieties out of a larger set. The varieties were ranked based on traits, including yield, disease resistance, taste, marketability and food product quality. The trial for cassava was conducted in three agroecologies of Nigeria representing areas where cassava farming is dominant and four agroecologies for sweet potato. Dr Madu will share results from trials which were evaluated at multiple stages – 1, 3, 6 and 9 months after planting and post-harvest for cassava and 7 days,1, 3 and 4 months after planting and post-harvest for sweet potato.

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