About
Owoade Durodola is an MSc Research Fellow under Nextgen Cassava studying at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Her background degree was in Plant Science and she has worked at IITA for over five years in the cassava breeding as phenotyping research expert. Durodola’s research manuscript was titled Exploring demand driven seeds and prioritized traits amidst preference complexity using molecular proofs and the paper is under review. Her research study has both breeding and gender component parts and it was co-supervised and reviewed by IITA Social scientist/gender specialist (Bela Teeken) and a genetics postdoc breeder (Ismail Kayondo).
Durodola’s study was tailored towards understanding informal seed dealers and how they are functioning in terms of seed movements in order to define possible entry points and strategies of developing a seed system for cassava. The exercise was carried out in different agroecological regions of Nigeria (South east, south-west south-south and north central) where cassava farming activity is perceived to be both men and women’s job, and most importantly, cassava seeds conservation under adequate land sizes are seen beyond family consumptions rather to generate income from stems sales and the choice of varietal seeds cultivated is dependents of gender preferences. The genetic composition information of the selected farmers’ variety, genetic markers information and interviews conducted was used to produce summary reports of the exploratory research of adopted improved varieties and local seed varieties among seed dealers.
