1.Biotechnology and Nuclear Agric Research Institute, GAEC Kwabenya, Accra. 2. School of Agriculture, University of Ghana, Legon. 3. International Potato Center (CIP), c/o CSIR-CRI, P.O. Box 3785, Kumasi, Ghana Make sure the edges of your columns are aligned with adjacent columns. Don’t trust your eyes: select the columns, then “Align” with the Align tool. Abstract A Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) was carried out in three regions of Ghana to identify farmers’ production constraints and preferences for sweetpotato. Drought ranked highest among the production constraints identified. Farmers preferred poundable, low- sweet and high dry matter varieties. The lack of these traits in current cultivars is a limiting factor to its frequent utilization in traditional food preparations. Farmers expressed their willingness to accept low-sugar, high dry matter and poundable varieties. Drought tolerance, high yielding, disease and pest resistance ranked highest among preferred agronomic traits. Assessing production constraints and farmer preference for sweetpotato through a PRA study and structured survey Literature cited FAOSTAT (2012). Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Production statistics [Online]. Available at http://faostat.fao.org. (Accessed on 21 st September, 2010). FAO Rome, Italy. Lin, K. H., Lai, Y. C., Chang, K. Y., Chen, Y. F., Hwang, S. Y., and LO, H. F. (2007). Improving breeding efficiency for quality and yield of sweetpotato. Botanical studies 48, 283-292. Low, J. W., Arimond, M., Osman, N., Cunguara, B., Zano, F., and Tschirley, D. (2007). A Food- Based Approach. Introducing Orange- Fleshed Sweetpotatoes Increased Vitamin A Intake and Serum Retinol Concentrations in Young Children in Rural Mozambique. Journal of Nutrition 137, 1320-1327. Conclusions 1.Farmers in Ghana prefer high dry matter, poundable and low- sweet sweetpotato 2.Current varieties are unsuitable for use in traditional food preparations 3.New types for diversified usage including utilization in traditional food preparations are necessary. 4.In the development of new types breeders must also consider agronomic traits such as drought and disease resistance Acknowledgement Results 1. Production constraints (Fig. 3) • Farmers listed 14 constraints to production • 44% ranked drought highest followed by low market prices, high labour cost, low utilization, pest and diseases. 4. Acceptance of low sweet cultivar • 70% of farmers were willing to accept low-sweet cultivars (Fig. 6) Vivian Oduro 1 , E. E. Blay 2 , S. K. Offei 2 , I.K. Asante 2 and E. E Carey 3 Materials and methods A Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) was carried out in three regions of Ghana (Fig. 2.).Two or three districts within each region was selected. Altogether, 647 farmers in 27 farming communities were involved in focus group (Fig. 3) discussions using semi- structured questionnaire, matrix and pairwise ranking. Each focus group involved 15-30 farmers. PRA sites were geo-referenced with GPS. One hundred and twenty structured questionnaires were administered in each region, to complement PRA study Fig 2:Study areas within the 3 regions Introduction Sweetpotato is nutritionally more superior to most staples.(Lin et at, 2007; Low et al 2007). However, production in Ghana has more or less stagnated over a decade (Fig. 1) with annual average production figures of about 117,000 tons (FAOSTAT, 2011). One factor among others, responsible for this trend is the low investment in sweetpotato research. Current varieties are therefore inadequate in meeting farmers’ varietal needs, with a corresponding deficiency in consumer preferred traits. To understand the dynamics of sweetpotato production and utilization in Ghana, it was important to interact with farmers who are both producers and users so as to identify priority areas for research. • Farmers listed 9 quality attributes they would want in a sweetpotato (figure 4) • Less sweet, poundable, flesh colour, high dry matter were among the highest ranked traits. 3. Agronomic and eating quality • The highest ranked agronomic traits were drought tolerance, disease & pest resistance, high yields and good quality vines 2. Local preparation methods • Sweetpotato is prepared mainly in three ways in Ghana (Fig. 4)