Report on consumer acceptability tests of NARITA hybrids in Tanzania and Uganda

Consumer acceptability tests of NARITA hybrids were conducted with a total of 572 randomly selected men and women farmers from 5 sites in different agro-ecological zones in Tanzania and Uganda (Maruku, Mitalula and Moshi in Tanzania; Kawanda and Mbarara in Uganda). Evaluations were done between July and November 2018 under the project ‘Improvement of banana for smallholder farmers in the Great Lakes Region of Africa’. At each site, focus group discussions (FGDs) were first conducted with different age groups: young women, young men (35 years) to ascertain the main products households make using cooking banana cultivars and the preparation method. The most important product was then prepared in each site - steamed matooke in both Uganda sites and boiled fingers in all Tanzania sites. On a given day, about 100 farmers were each provided with coded samples of four NARITA hybrids plus one local check and asked to rate each sample on a 5-point hedonic scale for the following attributes: colour, aroma, texture in hand, taste, mouthfeel and overall acceptability. This report provides results that can help inform the selection of the best NARITAs to take on-farm and subsequent varietal release

Why Gender Matters in Breeding: Lessons from Cooking Bananas in Uganda

This study examined the gender-differentiated trait preferences of cooking banana (matooke) for farmers and consumers in Central Uganda to inform banana-breeding strategies. Women and men banana farmers might have differing production objectives, norms, and values which drive decisions on which varieties to adopt and grow. However, breeders rarely consider this in their variety development programs, leading to lost opportunities for equitable breeding. An exploratory sequential mixed-method approach was used to obtain a richer understanding of the trait preferences of women and men, which explains the acceptability of cooking bananas. Consumer preference tests for the candidate banana varieties and released hybrids were also conducted. The results showed that the universal attributes for variety selection were bunch size, taste, resistance to pests and diseases, drought tolerance, food texture/softness, maturity period, and finger size. Men appreciated agronomic and market-related traits, such as tolerance to drought and poor soils, bunch size and compactness, maturity period, and shelf life, while women valued processing and cooking traits such as flavour, food colour, ease of peeling, finger size, and agronomic traits such as plant height. These are plausible attributes for the gender-responsive breeding of bananas. The findings highlight the need to redesign the banana-breeding pipeline and process in Uganda to deliver varieties with attributes desired by women and men along this commodity value chain. A participatory demand-driven and gender-responsive process involving stepwise selection criteria that commences with quality traits followed by production traits while integrating gender-specific preferences should be employed to ensure the acceptability of cooking banana hybrids by women and men end users. This requires integrating different disciplines, including social scientists and gender experts, along the entire breeding process for more inclusive products and equitable outcomes