Table 1.
Brief description of the nine seed sources for banana planting material used in the study.
| Source | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| Formal | Laboratory |
A laboratory producing tissue culture (TC) banana plantlets. Tissue culture plantlets are produced in laboratories and can be distributed on behalf of other organizations and to nurseries, but can also directly be accessed by farmers (Kilwinger et al., 2017). Sourcing from a laboratory meant farmers directly acquired the planting material from the laboratory without any intermediate organization or nursery. |
| Nursery |
A nursery for banana planting material. Several nurseries have been established as part of seed system interventions (Kikulwe, 2016). Nurseries usually provide TC plantlets but since most nurseries have a large mother garden, suckers can also be obtained. | |
| National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) | The National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) is a public agency responsible for agricultural advisory/extension services. One of NAADS’ programs was the distribution of banana planting material, either in the form TC, corms or suckers | |
| National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) | NARO mainly develops, but sometimes distributes new banana cultivars either in the form of TC, corms or suckers (Kilwinger, 2017). | |
| Nongovernmental organization (NGO) | Some NGOs such as Caritas distribute banana planting material among their members, either in the form of TC, corms or suckers (Kilwinger et al., 2017). | |
| Informal | Large-scale farmer | A large-scale banana farmer within the community. |
| Remote farmer | A banana farmer from outside the community. Farmers mainly exchange banana suckers within the community but exchange with farmers from other communities also occurs (Kilwinger et al., 2019b). | |
| Neighbor | A neighboring farmer. Farmers often refer to fellow farmers within the community as neighbors even if they are also relatives or friends and not direct neighbors (Kilwinger et al., 2019b). | |
| Own farm | The own farm. In both districts around 70% of the suckers is sourced from the own farm (Kilwinger et al., 2019b). |