The HARNESSTOM project promotes citizen science activities to recover the flavor of the tomato

The European project HARNESSTOM, led by Dr. Antonio Granell (IBMCP-CSIC) and with the participation of different European research centers, is beginning to deploy its activities in Spain[JC1] . The project aims to improve the cultivated varieties of tomato, with special emphasis on the sensory and gastronomic traits. A key challenge of the project is to improve the transfer of knowledge and materials developed by research centers to the productive and public sectors. With this aim, in the coming years different programs of Citizen Science and Participatory Selection will be organized in HARNESSTOM, where seeds and seedlings of varieties selected in previous research projects will be distributed to farmers, chefs and citizens.

As a first activity, an online questionnaire has been released aiming to gather the preferences of consumers, farmers and chefs regarding the characteristics that an ideal tomato must have. An important aspect is that the survey allows to design an ideal tomato for a "general" use, but also proposes some local case studies. The questionnaire is translated into 7 languages ??and is being disseminated to different regions of the world, from the Mediterranean to Southeast Asia, through the network of project collaborators. The survey will be active until the end of January 2022 and will serve to identify which characteristics are important in a variety of tomato, integrating the needs of different agents, from farmers to consumers, as well as identifying singularities associated with different regions and cultures. The results will allow us to know in more depth what we like about a tomato and direct the selection of varieties toward that goals.

To participate in the survey, you can follow the following link: http://harnesstom.eu/en/survey.html