Objectives

The general objective is to ensure more widespread adoption of improved varieties, hence boosting food security and farmers’ incomes.

The specific objective is to link local consumer preferences with quantitative quality criteria, before integrating these criteria into breeding programs.

Location

Benin, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Uganda, France (Guadeloupe, La Réunion, Métropole)

Description

The RTBfoods project analyzes three common uses of each target crops (cassava, yam, sweet potato, plantain and tropical potato). The analysis uses a reverse engineering approach, working backwards from consumers to breeders.

RTBfoods focuses on five work packages (WP):

• The first WP (WP1) looks at socioeconomic aspects and identifies the criteria that determine whether a variety is adopted or rejected. Aspects linked to gender (role of women and children in decision-making) is closely looked at
• The second WP (WP2) establishes the link between the above user's criteria and the biophysical properties of different varieties: how do people's preferences (texture, consistency, taste...) relate to biophysical data (starch and fiber content...)
• The third WP (WP3)  builds on CIRAD's expertise in terms of near-infrared spectroscopy analysis (NIRS). This technology serves to detect the biological compounds that make up food matrices: it is used as a fingerprint of foodstuffs, providing information on certain quality traits (cooking quality, firmness...). This approach allows breeders to predict the quality traits of their new varieties
• The fourth WP (WP4) investigates the genetic components of quality traits and assesses the impact of the environment on their variability, such as the climate, the soil...
• The fifth WP (WP5) assesses whether the approach taken by RTBfoods has ensured that breeders increase their use of selection tools for quality traits, and that new varieties have better matched the users’ quality criteria