Résumé
Groundnut is a cash crop that generates income and improves the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in several developing countries. Although Senegal is one of the major producing countries, the national average grain yield remains low. A participatory rural appraisal was conducted in the Groundnut Basin of Senegal in 2015 and aimed to assess farmer perceptions of production constraints and varietal trait preferences. Ninety farmers were randomly selected in nine villages distributed across three regions of the Groundnut Basin. Data was collected through Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and Semi-Structured Interviews (SSI). The results of the study indicated that seed availability was the most limiting factor in groundnut production across villages. Low soil fertility and storage insect pests were the second and third most important constraints respectively. Other constraints included limited access to land, drought, and commercialization. Among varietal traits, farmers unanimously considered pod and haulm yields as the most important. Other important traits mentioned were adaptation to drought, high pod weight, and earliness. These production constraints and varietal trait preferences should be taken into consideration when defining the groundnut product profiles of the national breeding program in order to improve productivity and increase the adoption of newly bred cultivars.