Purpose
IMAGE is a five-year programme supported by Resourced and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that aims to generate evidence to institutionalise the use of genotyping to identify crop varieties in order to strengthen seed systems in Tanzania, Nigeria and Ethiopia. The aim is to systematise the process so as to enable scaling to new crops and geographies in the future.
Action
In Tanzania, EDI Global worked with Resourced, the Tanzania Official Seed Certification Institute (TOSCI), the Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) to develop the survey methodology and sampling strategy, to implement the first wave of a series of household surveys, and to conduct the analysis and reporting.
In Nigeria, EDI Global worked with Resourced, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), the National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC), and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) to support the implementation of the survey and to conduct the data analysis, through holding capacity building sessions and providing continuous support throughout the project.
Impact
In Tanzania, EDI Global listed a total of 8,476 households across 235 villages. The survey included a component that required plant sample material to be collected: this could be leaf cuttings or seeds. To that end, EDI Global collected plant material from 4,046 fields. In particular, EDI Global field teams collected plant samples from 1,087 cassava fields, 1,041 bean fields, 1,034 maize fields and 884 rice fields. The plant material was tagged with barcodes and preserved until it was brought to the TOSCI laboratory to proceed with the genotyping.
household interviews
fields with plant material collected
regions of mainland Tanzania
In Nigeria, EDI Global led a two-week training in Abuja with the National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC), OAU, the National Centre for Genetics Resource Biotechnology (NACGRAB), NBS, and other stakeholders. The training took participants through the different processes involved in data collection projects, from the preparation phase to analysis, including the training and data collection monitoring phases. This training preceded the implementation of the project in Nigeria. EDI Global then supported and guided the implementation partners, based on our experience in Tanzania. In addition to providing the configured questionnaire and providing assistance in the sampling, EDI Global also led the data quality monitoring during the data collection.
Finally, in October 2022, the EDI Global team also contributed to a dissemination workshop organised by CGD in Arusha with national representatives from the three countries in which IMAGE is implemented. The purpose of the workshop was to ensure all implementation partners had the opportunity to present and discuss findings from the IMAGE study and devise strategies to make the evidence impactful in future policymaking. EDI Global played a key role in supporting the Nigerian team working on the analytical outputs.
