INCREASE – Intelligent Collections of Food Legumes Genetic Resources for European Agrofood Systems

Record number of 9,293 registrations for Citizen Science Experiment in 2023

Registrations for the 3rd round of the INCREASE Citizen Science Experiment are now closed and the bean growing journey for 2023 is about to start with a record number of 9,293 participants from all over Europe. This is about 2,000 more participants than in the first two rounds of the experiment, in 2021 and 2022, combined.

After an intense final registration countdown, Italy has reached a glorious first place with 2,279 registered citizens. This is closely followed by Germany, with an equally impressive number of 2,218 registrations. France takes third place, with 1,628 registered citizens, thanks to the wide outreach of a radio interview on the popular channel France Inter. This caused the French participant numbers to soar within the last days of registration. Another shooting star is Belgium, in fourth place with 1,404 registrations, where the Meise Botanical Garden has strongly supported the promotion of the experiment in the last registration weeks. Next is Sweden, were the communication campaign, supported by the Nordic Genetic Resource Center, motivated 450 citizens to register. The Citizen Science Experiment furthermore welcomes 371 citizens from Spain, 233 from Poland, 179 from the Netherlands, 129 from Romania, 117 from Denmark, 57 from Hungary, 53 from Slovenia, 41 from Austria, 34 from Switzerland, 31 from Portugal, 27 from Finland and more participants from 13 other countries. In total, the Citizen Science Experiment represents 29 countries of the EU and beyond.

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The INCREASE team is delightfully overwhelmed and proud about the interest of nearly ten thousand citizens to help generate scientific knowledge about old bean varieties and thereby fostering agrobiodiversity. After recent closure of registrations, the next phase of distributing the beans among citizens has now begun. Also SMTA acceptance, packaging and sending of all the bean envelopes has started. More information on the following steps can be found here.

Among all received registrations, 340 citizens had already participated in previous rounds of the experiment. They form the base of establishing a decentralised seed conservation community (read more here). With the help of the latest update of the ‘INCREASE CSA’ app these citizens can now exchange seeds among themselves.

Strongly believing in the motto “better together”, the INCREASE team encourages all participating citizens to connect with each other and the project and share tips, experiences and photos throughout their bean growing journey. A great place to meet other bean lovers are the dedicated, language-specific Facebook groups.

The INCREASE team wholeheartedly thanks all supporters of the Citizen Science Experiment and sends best wishes for the upcoming bean growing season!

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