Developing impactful, in-demand, gender-intentional, and feasible target product profiles (TPPs)

Muungani, D., Banda, V.R., Coaldrake, P., Connor, M., Najjar, D., Yadax, S., Taleon, V., Newby, J., Mendes, T., Dufour, D., Cemont, M., Polar, V., Banziger, M. 2024. Developing impactful, in-demand, gender-intentional, and feasible target product profiles (TPPs). A Poster presented at the CGIAR Unitiative on Market Intelligence WP1-WP2 Workshop, 14-18 October 2024, Harare, Zimbabwe.

The uptake of new crop varieties in low to medium-income countries remains low partly due to a mismatch between breeder and farmer trait priorities. Breeders often focus on agronomic traits like drought and pest resistance, overlooking traits important to farmers, such as processing and sensory qualities. This can particularly affect women farmers, who represent a large proportion of the farming population. Addressing these needs is crucial for new varieties to succeed.

The CGIAR Initiatives on Market Intelligence and Accelerated Breeding addresses this challenge through a standardized Target Product Profile (TPP), which identifies traits important to different market segments. The TPP standard classifies traits as essential or “nice-to-have”. Essential traits are necessary for a variety’s success and can either be “improved” or “maintained” deliberately through breeding. Nice-to-have traits are optional.

However, balancing multiple traits in a TPP is challenging. Too many traits can hinder breeding progress, making it critical for TPP design teams to make trade-offs. A high-quality TPP must be impactful, in-demand, gender-intentional, and feasible. Impactful means the TPP should focus on 1 – 3 key value propositions that deliver the greatest benefit to farmers. In-demand means that farmers and seed companies must recognize the benefits of improved traits and be motivated to adopt the new varieties. Feasibility means that improvements in key traits must be achievable within 10 – 15 years. Gender intentional means evaluating specific traits that affect men, women, and youth, ensuring that their needs and impacts are considered in the breeding process.