CGIAR Gender News
Plant breeders could let women farmers guide them
![An an improved bean variety helps women and men farmers in Tanzania improve their lives. Photo: Georgina Smith/CIAT.](/sites/default/files/styles/h/public/header/Bean%20power%20in%20Tz_CIAT.jpg?itok=WAiqXPQk)
Plant breeders produce new varieties for their customers: farmers. To predict what kinds of new varieties are likely to offer significant benefits to farmers, breeders may turn to their customers to evaluate which characteristics might make a new variety more acceptable. A comprehensive review of many such evaluations suggests that if breeders were to pay more attention to what women need, it could increase the usefulness of new varieties in many ways.