Participatory Selection of Quality Protein Maize (QPM) Lines Based On Farmers' and Breeder' s Knowledge: A Case Study From Democratic Republic of Congo.

In Africa several million people rely on maize as their principal daily food. Unfortunately maize lacks the full range of amino acids, namely lysine and tryptophan needed to produce proteins. Scientists at CIMMYT have developed quality protein maize (QPM) lines that have been tested for varying climatic and growing conditions. The main objective of the present study was to make varietal selection for diverse and productive maize lines with quality protein content, adapted to local conditions and accepted by farmers and consumers at a large in the Democratic Republic of Congo.   Participatory variety selection was applied to select diversified QPM maize lines that possess farmer’s preferred plant and grain traits. During the first two seasons, males and female farmers were invited at community plots to select elite accessions from a pool of 24 lines and hybrids. Selection was based primarily on agronomic traits such as time to maturity, disease and insect resistance, and grain yield. The best lines were selected and subjected to quality test that lead to a final selection of accessions based on grain flour quality, food palatability, taste, and protein and lysine & tryptophane content. The evidence strongly indicates that the introduction of a participatory approach to agricultural research has allowed selection of maize lines that have out-performed local developed lines on more than one criterion. The adoption of these newly introduced lines is expected to be high since they were selected based on farmer’s preference.