Click on the link below to view the webinar by Anna Müller from the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT on 11 December 2025 entitled Building horizontal networks of trust: research into the motivations of crop users to join tricot as on-farm researchers.
Presenter Bio: Dr. Anna Müller is a Senior Scientist at the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT and leads the 1000FARMs Work Package “Inform Product Management.” She conducts research on the motivations of farmers to join tricot as on-farm researchers, with a focus on how these insights can inform product profiles and breeding decisions.
For more info, contact Anna at a.muller@cgiar.org
Summary of presentation: Anna, along with her colleague Béla Teeken, Social Scientist and Gender Specialist at IITA, shared their work on the 1000FARMS project. In particular, why farmers choose to participate as citizen scientists in tricot on-farm trials and how farmers’ motivations can support more equitable, trust-based collaboration.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Some tricot work seems to happen through direct collaboration between researchers and farmers (for example, an IITA researcher working directly with a farmer). But to achieve larger-scale reach, it may be necessary to involve intermediaries like extension services or similar institutions. So what are people’s perspectives on how to broaden the reach of tricot by integrating it into extension or other intermediary organizations? | Yes, extension should be a bigger focus, and in Rwanda they have worked with One Acre Fund field agents for participatory video and a motivation survey, though it was a one-time effort. Extension agents there said the approach improved trust with farmers and helped them understand farmers better through empathy and shared learning. The main downside is that it takes time to learn the method and to visit farmers for the video process. Next year, they want to work with partners in Rwanda and Nigeria to explore how to broaden this within extension systems and to produce outputs like published videos and a practical guide. At a higher institutional level, tricot is now included as an option for on-farm testing in Nigeria’s variety release guidelines, and they are pushing for full manuals and broader adoption, with similar efforts underway in DRC. |
| I’m wondering about men’s versus women’s participation in tricot, since I’ve seen that participation is often mostly men and I’ve also struggled to engage women in trials in tribal communities in India. In our tricot trial, women were comfortable helping with the setup and joining the group discussion at the end, but many felt shy and reluctant during the individual ranking exercise because it wasn’t done as a group. Have you experienced something similar in your tricot projects, and do you have suggestions for helping women feel more comfortable doing the ranking? | We had fairly balanced participation in the survey, with about 55% men and 45% women, and in Rwanda and Nigeria we did work with both female and male farmers. In Rwanda, the exercise often became more family-focused, so other family members who were around would join in as well. In Nigeria, we generally didn’t see women feeling uncomfortable participating the way you described. If women in India feel shy doing the ranking individually, I’d suggest working with a trusted female spokesperson or lead farmer that the community chooses, or creating a small group of women who participate together. Ultimately, I think the best setup depends on the cultural context, but having a mechanism that gives women more support and confidence can really help. |
| In Nigeria, our National Variety Release Committee has accepted tricot as an alternative for on-farm testing, and I’m involved through a technical subcommittee role. But I’m still questioning whether all the resources we put into tricot are worth it if it only replaces standard on-farm trials, because the effort is substantial. For continuity and scale, I think we also need to involve extension agents across states and local governments, not just work directly with farmers, and in shea beans we use the Nigerian Shea Beans Association as a stronger structure. On gender, I think we should look beyond farm participation, since men are often more represented on farms while women may dominate processing and marketing | I agree that people often complain that tricot feels complicated and costly, mainly because it’s a newer method with statistics and logistics that many teams are still learning. From my perspective, it’s getting easier because we now have more straightforward tools and online, click-based analysis that still lets people filter by demographics or combine with climate data. Based on costing exercises, I don’t think tricot has to be more expensive if it’s managed pragmatically, for example by working with groups in nearby villages rather than scattered farms. I’ve also seen that extension involvement depends on context: it didn’t work well for us in parts of southwest Nigeria, but in the southeast it worked well where extension officers were respected and integrated into the approach. I think the key is training, simple guides, and using digital tools like mobile phones so the method becomes routine. Finally, I don’t think tricot should be limited to variety release, because it can be used earlier in breeding and even by the private sector as a way to learn what performs well where and to generate market insight. |