Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research organisation has adopted a bottom-up crops seed research and development approach as opposed to the previous top-bottom method.
Through the participatory variety selection concept, Kalro engages farmers as main stakeholders and agricultural extension officers to pick the seed varieties that are ideal for certain ecological areas.
“We select a particular number of seeds according to yields and take them to farmers. Farmers are then allowed to choose the best for their areas after demonstration and trial planting,” Kalro research officer Rael Karimi said.
Karimi spoke on Thursday at Makima in Embu.
She was at the green grams seed trial farms supervising farmers as they rated the performance of the 12 seed lines planted on the trial farms.
Karimi lead her team in a similar exercise in Mwingi on Tuesday.
She said it is different from the previous system where seed varieties were developed at Kalro and were then taken to farmers.
Karimi said in some cases, the farmers rejected them for being unfair for their ecological state, after huge resources were used in popularising them.
However, farmers also rejected them for lack of involvement thus the adaptation of the more acceptable method of having farmers participate in selecting the ideal seeds for their areas.
The officer said currently, nine new Mung beans seed lines were undergoing trials in various sites across the Eastern region.
She said the idea was to establish whether they would complement or rival those under cultivation in terms of performance and being resilient.
Karimi was optimistic new versatile mung beans seed varieties will be released if current trials succeed.
Farmer Marieta Mwelu from Nyamuri village in Makima said the 12 seed lines had performed well with high yields.
Her farm was used for the seed trials.
However, Marieta said members present had picked the best of all.
“We urge Kalro to continue researching under the new partnership with communities, to provide us with seed varieties to assure maximum returns,” Marieta said.
She said the research should be diversified to millet and sorghum.
Samuel Njagi, Makima ward agricultural officer said involving the community to select the right seed was the best thing for farmers.
He said giving them the ideal green gram seed varieties would benefit them more.
Njagi said mung beans farming was popular.
Edited by Kiilu Damaris
