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Author: Jérôme Bossuet

Policy outreach to mainstream SIMLESA learning: Q&A with Paswel Marenya

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in News. 1 Comment on Policy outreach to mainstream SIMLESA learning: Q&A with Paswel Marenya

The Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa project (SIMLESA), led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), has completed a series of country policy forums. The forums focused on maize-legume intercropping systems, Conservation Agriculture based on Sustainable Intensification (CASI) and other innovations that can help farmers in target countries shift to more sustainable farming practices resulting in better yields and incomes.

Policy makers and scientists from eastern and southern Africa will meet in Uganda at a regional forum convened by the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA), 3-4 May, 2019. The forum will discuss ways to scale up the learnings of SIMLESA.

In the following interview, Paswel Marenya, CIMMYT scientist and SIMLESA leader, reflects on 8 years of project learning, what CASI means for African smallholder farmers, the dialogue between scientists and policy makers and next steps.

Q: What does sustainable intensification of the maize-legume systems mean in the African context? Why is this important for smallholder farmers?

A: Sustainable intensification is the ability to produce more food without having a negative impact on the environment and the natural resource base, but in an economically profitable, and socially and politically acceptable way. In eastern and southern Africa (ESA), maize is the most important staple and the population’s main calorie source. In Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania and Ethiopia annual per capita consumption of maize is around 100, 130, 70 and 50 kg respectively. This important cereal is at the center of nutrition and food security in the countries where SIMLESA has been working.

Legumes and cereals go hand-in-hand. In ESA the majority of agriculture producers – typically over 70 percent – are small farmers who farm on less than 5 hectares of land. Smallholders need sustainable diversification by intercropping maize with legumes. They get their calories from the cereals and derive proteins from the legumes. If they get marketable surplus, legumes are lucrative crops that typically fetch twice the price of maize.

Currently, the average legume yield in ESA is about 0.5 tons per hectare (t/ha). With the practices and the new varieties that SIMLESA tested, legume yield increased by 1-1.5 t/ha. Such significant yield improvement can have a huge impact on household income, food and nutritional security. For maize, the average yield in the region is about 1 t/ha, although in Ethiopia average yield is 2-2.5 t/ha. Using SIMLESA-recommended CASI practices yields of up to 3.5-4 t/ha were achieved in research-managed fields. Under farmer conditions, the yield can increase from 1-1.5 t/ha to about 2-2.5 t/ha.

SIMLESA has enabled farmers to significantly increase the productivity of maize and legumes without undermining soil health, and allowed farmers to become more resilient, especially in the face of erratic and harsh climate conditions.

Integration of small mechanization in CASI practices, particularly in Tanzania, is another positive outcome of SIMLESA. Farm labor tends to fall disproportionately on women and children in traditional systems, so the integration of machinery that can eliminate labor drudgery might alleviate the labor burden away from women.

Q: How did SIMLESA identify the best approaches to improve yields and incomes in a sustainable way in each target country?

A: Africa has not experienced the green revolution that South and Southeast Asia experienced in the 1960s and 1970s, with improved varieties, irrigation and government support. Africa’s heterogenous environment calls for a different approach that is more systems oriented. The integration of disciplines from agronomy, soil science, breeding, economics and social science – including market studies and policy analysis – are part of the approach SIMLESA has used. This interdisciplinary approach is something you seldom see in many projects.

To identify best approaches, SIMLESA has conducted adaptive agronomy research, which involves scientists replicating successful experiments done in agricultural institutes or research stations in farmers’ fields under farmer resources and local conditions.

SIMLESA also promotes the notion of conservation agriculture to shift thinking in farmer practices. Conservation agriculture involves farmers growing maize and legumes in minimally tilled fields, retaining crop residue on fields without burning or discarding and implementing crop diversification.

Q: What are some of the key takeaways from the policy dialogues SIMLESA initiated in the project countries?

A: One of the things we have done in the final year of SIMLESA is policy outreach. Having done all the adaptive agronomy, socio-economic and gender studies, it is time to mainstream the results. One way of doing this is to share specific, concrete results with decision makers and explain the implication of those results to them. To do that, we organized a series of workshops in seven target countries in the region, at both the local and national levels. We shared ideas on what can be done to mainstream SIMLESA in development and research programs and in knowledge systems.

For SIMLESA practices to become the norm, more farmers need to use conservation agriculture systems, adopt improved, drought-tolerant varieties, integrate and improve legume production and where possible, practice crop rotation. At a minimum, they should do optimal and resource-conserving intercropping, conserve crop biomass for extended periods in order to recycle nutrients and organic matter and move away from aggressive tillage.

Across the seven countries, research on CASI practices should continue with proper knowledge systems put in place. Curated agronomy and socio-economic research data are easily accessible to a range of actors – scientists, farmers or agribusinesses – in a repository. Policy recommendations at country level have been summed up in a series of policy briefs.

The need to strengthen the training and mainstreaming of conservation agriculture in the curriculum at the tertiary-education level was stressed in Kenya and Tanzania. Developing the machinery value chain was recommended in Uganda, Tanzania and Mozambique. Such tools as the hoe, jab planter, riplines and the two-wheel tractor are suitable for implementing conservation agriculture practices like planting seed on untilled or minimally tilled land with crop residue. Another suggestion from Uganda, Tanzania and Mozambique was the need to focus on training of technicians who can provide machinery after-sales services and promote machinery hire to help farmers access the basic tools. Incubating businesses in custom hire services, provision of seed capital, and a focus on multi-functional mechanization also featured prominently. Another idea was to support small last-mile agribusinesses such as agro-dealers to aid scaling efforts.

Workshops also highlighted a need for government to work closely with extension services and industry associations to show the benefits of agricultural inputs on a consistent and long-term basis. This can help create markets and therefore the business case for agribusinesses to expand their distribution networks.

Farmer Anjeline Odero checks maize in her CA plot in Siaya county, Kenya. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)

Q: How relevant is the issue of indigenous or local knowledge in the implementation and scale up of CASI approaches?

A: CASI principles are compatible with traditional African farming practices, especially the diversification element. African agro-ecologies are not conducive to monocropping as such, especially in areas with poor markets. If you don’t have good linkages with the markets, you will lose out, especially on the nutritional aspects. Where will you, for instance, get your proteins? African indigenous agriculture was a more self-containing system and self-regenerative in the sense that people did fallow farming, there was strong crop-livestock integration and mixed cropping systems.

Q: What are some of the adoption constraints that relate to the implementation or scale-up of CASI approaches?

A: Some of the constraints include the availability of appropriate machinery and suitable weed management. Currently, for weed management, the suggestion is to use herbicides. This is facing resistance in countries such as Kenya and Rwanda owing to the environmental effects of widespread herbicide use. The challenge is to find weed management technologies that minimize or eliminate herbicide use. The other constraint relates to markets. When you succeed in raising legume and maize production, you must find markets for them.

Another constraint concerns educating farmers on implementing the practices in the right way on a large scale. This expensive undertaking requires a public-private sector partnership. To have impact, you need large-scale farmer education and demonstrations.

Q: One of the key constraints is labor intensive activities that are inefficient and time wasting. This can be fixed with access to small mechanization. What are some of the approaches that enable smallholders’ access to farm machinery? How sustainable are these approaches?

A: This is one  area that needs more work. Although machinery was not an integral part of the project design, SIMLESA scientists and national implementers found ways of assimilating machinery testing, including leveraging other CIMMYT projects such as the Farm Mechanization and Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification project (FACASI), which was a SIMLESA collaborator on the farm mechanization component. Two-wheel tractors and other conservation agriculture machinery that were tested to promote the agronomy that SIMLESA was working on, especially in Tanzania, came from the FACASI project.

Q: SIMLESA stakeholders will gather at the ASARECA regional forum in early May to discuss actionable CASI programs for the public and private sector alike. What do you expect from this regional forum? If there were two or so policy recommendations to give, what would they be?

A: At the forum, we will engage with top-level officials from governments, development organizations and the private sector from ASARECA countries including Mozambique and Malawi. We expect to share the key lessons we learned from SIMLESA. The focus is on how to catalyze paradigm shifts in smallholder agronomy and accelerate institutional change that will enable the technologies to get to scale. We hope to see a communiqué, expressing the acceptance and commitment of the conclusions from the forum, developed and signed. That should serve as a lasting record of the commitments and agreements made at the forum.

Some policy recommendations include creating an enabling environment that provides nationwide CASI demonstration sites for farmers. We are encouraging the government, the private sector and community organizations to join forces and find ways of facilitating the funding for multi-year, long-term CASI demonstration and learning sites. While CASI practices are becoming mainstream in the thinking of business and government leaders, these now need to be specifically be budgeted into various agricultural programs. One key program to promote CASI is retraining extension workers to on new systems of production based on CASI principles so they can facilitate knowledge transfer and help farmers act collectively and engage with markets more effectively.

Farmer Rukaya Hasani Mtambo weeds her CA plot of maize and beans in Hai District, Tanzania. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)

Taking maize agronomy to scale in Africa Q&A

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in News.

Testing SeedAssure, a decision support tool, on a tablet in the field. (Photo: Jerome Bossuet)

Should we reinvent the way we advise African smallholder farmers?

Development organization professionals from the agriculture, health, education, conservation and humanitarian sectors will gather from April 30 to May 2, 2019 in Kampala, Uganda for the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for Development ICT4D conference organized by Catholic Relief Services.  The aim of this conference is to explore which digital innovations could accelerate progress towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. Jens Andersson, a social scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), will speak on how we could reinvent advisory services for African smallholder farmers, such as through decision support tools. The following interview reflects his thoughts on the issue.

 

Q: Some experts say that current agronomic research does not properly advise smallholder farmers. Farmers are given blanket recommendations on key subjects such as crop varieties, fertilizer use and seed spacing. Why do you think that we need to reinvent advisory services?

A: Smallholder farmers with limited resources often can’t afford fertilizer and seed.  They also don’t reach agronomic management levels assumed by the blanket recommendations given by agricultural extension services. They may not have enough cash to invest, enough labor to carry out tasks – such as weeding – as frequently as recommended, or they may not prioritize crop production as a part of their livelihood. Consequently, input investments and agronomic management vary considerably from field to field and so does the fertility of those fields. Standard advice simply is not enough, given the diversity of farmers’ situations.

The challenge is to identify the key factors shaping maize yields in farmers’ fields and to identify how a farmer could more efficiently use his or her available inputs and available labor. It is not about telling farmers what to do, but about providing options that suit each farmer’s situation. Technologies such as remote sensing and ICTs can help tremendously in data collection for assessing the conditions of farmers’ fields and better tailoring agronomic advice to their specific situation.

Q: Since 2015, CIMMYT has been working with research, extension and development partners in Nigeria, Ethiopia and Tanzania to develop strategies to Take Maize Agronomy to Scale in Africa (TAMASA). Can you explain the overall approach on how to scale advice to farmers?

A: With ICTs, we can now link and integrate very diverse types of geospatial data, such as soil data, climate and weather data, as well as socio-economic data such as market prices and population densities. Mobile internet and GPS enable us to have such data available for any location. When combined with information obtained from farmers about their field conditions and preferences, agronomic advice can become location-specific.

This approach requires that agronomic data be collected in a geospatial manner. Therefore, TAMASA has conducted numerous agronomic experiments across agricultural landscapes in major maize growing areas in Nigeria, Ethiopia and Tanzania to establish a geographical distribution of soil nutrient availability and fertilizer responses. Such information can be used to model crop responses to fertilizer, and — when combined with fertilizer and crop price information — can provide nutrient recommendations for an individual field through an ex-ante spatial assessment framework. With this approach, extension providers can improve fertilizer recommendations, increasing farmers’ fertilizer use efficiency, productivity and profitability.

For example, in a trial conducted with 435 farmers in Nigeria, using the decision support tool Nutrient Expert resulted in farmers investing more in inputs and agronomic management and doubling their maize yields from 2 to 4 tons per hectare on average.

Q: What digital innovations do you want to showcase at the ICT4D conference? Which type of users are you targeting?

A: Providing location- or field-specific advice at scale requires understanding what information farmers need and what extension services they use. This is probably best illustrated with the example of the Maize-Variety-Selector (MVS) – a mobile phone application developed by TAMASA. Using climate data, information on the growth characteristics of specific maize varieties and multilocational agronomic trials, this application can advise on the most suitable maize varieties for a particular location and for a preferred planting and harvesting date. The application provides options tailored to farmers’ preferences and farming conditions.

Yet, such advice is of limited value in situations where the advised crop varieties are not available in local agro-dealer shops, or when farmers can’t be sure they are actually buying the variety of their choice due to poor packaging and labeling practices, as is sometimes the case in Nigeria.

In addition, government extension services in sub-Saharan Africa are overburdened and not capable of reaching many individual farmers: there is usually only one extension worker for every 2,500 farmers or more.

To improve extension outreach in Western Kenya, TAMASA developed a plant density and seed requirement mobile phone application – Maize-Seed-Area (MSA) – in consultation with both extension workers and agro-dealers. Using this application, extension workers reported they could now provide information on specific maize varieties because the application has a built-in database of available maize varieties.

The Maize-Seed-Area (MSA) mobile phone application.

Experiences of agro-dealers were different, as some found that their customers had made up their minds about what variety to buy before entering an agro-dealer shop. Agro-dealers reported that their customers particularly liked the seed requirement calculator, which provides immediate advice on how much seed to buy of a particular variety.  In a phone survey, farmers indicated that they trusted the agro-dealers’ advice when it was provided by the mobile phone application.

Q: TAMASA has been exploring the use of decision support tools for large-scale agronomic investments such as country-wide fertilizer subsidy programs. Could you explain your approach to this issue and its potential applications?

A: Some regional soil fertility programs and African governments aim to improve farmers’ yields and incomes through costly, large-scale distribution of fertilizers or soil inputs. Generating more site-specific agronomic recommendations at scale and taking into account the spatial diversity of a landscape, market prices and other supply chain elements will optimize the impact of such operations.

TAMASA has integrated various geospatial datasets such as the ISRIC World Soil Information’s SoilGrids, the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study agriculture dataset (LSMS-ISA), and the Global Yield Gap Atlas. Thanks to the ex-ante spatial assessment framework, we can better target future areas of intervention that currently have low maize yields but could potentially have profitable fertilizer usage.

Mapping predictive yield response and profitability can give us precious insights. For instance, many Ethiopian farmers face acid soils, and the government and development agencies have been thinking about lime distribution at scale to combat this issue. We could potentially create a lime dashboard by adapting the ex-ante spatial framework and provide key information to policymakers at the local and national level.

Q: Are you looking for potential partners at the ICT4D conference to help scale up this work?

A: At the ICT4D conference, we are looking forward to teaming up with new development partners, seed producers and governments to make these field- and farmer-specific advisory applications and decision support tools for agronomic investments more widely available to African smallholder maize farmers.

Profitability under different fertilization recommendation scenarios in Ethiopia and Tanzania, measured in U.S. dollars per hectare.

How the data revolution could help design better agronomic investments

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in Features.

Profitability under different fertilization recommendation scenarios in Ethiopia and Tanzania, measured in U.S. dollars per hectare.
Profitability under different fertilization recommendation scenarios in Ethiopia and Tanzania, measured in U.S. dollars per hectare.

What fertilizer application will give me the best returns? What maize crop variety should I use?

Each farmer faces constraints related to weather uncertainty, soil fertility management challenges, or access to finance and markets. To improve their yields and incomes, African smallholder farmers need agronomic advice adapted to their specific circumstances. The challenge is even greater in sub-Saharan Africa, where agricultural production landscapes are highly diverse. Yet traditional agronomic research was not designed to fit with complex agroecological regions and farming systems. Compounding the problem, research organizations often have limited resources to develop the necessary experiments to generate farm- and site-specific agronomic advice at scale.

“Agronomic research is traditionally not equipped to consider spatial or socio-economic diversity among the millions of farmers it targets,” said Sebastian Palmas, data scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Nairobi, Kenya.

Palmas presented some of the learnings of the Taking Maize Agronomy to Scale in Africa (TAMASA) project during a science seminar called “A spatial ex ante framework for guiding agronomic investments in sub-Saharan Africa” on March, 4, 2019.

The project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has used data to improve the way agronomic research for development is done. Researchers working on the TAMASA project addressed this challenge by using available geospatial information and other big data resources, along with new data science tools such as machine learning and Microsoft’s AI for Earth. They were able to produce and package information that can help farmers, research institutions and governments take better decisions on what agronomic practices and investments will give them the best returns.

By adapting the Quantitative Evaluation of the Fertility of Tropical Soils (QUEFTS) model to the conditions of small farmers in TAMASA target countries (Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania), using different layers of information, CIMMYT and its partners have developed a versatile geospatial tool for evaluating crop yield responses to fertilizer applications in different areas of a given country. Because calculations integrate spatial variation of fertilizer and grain prices, the tool evaluates the profitability — a key factor influencing farmers’ fertilizer usage — for each location. The project team can generate maps that show, for instance, the estimated agronomic and economic returns to different fertilizer application scenarios.

The TAMASA team plans to publish the code and user-friendly interface of this new geospatial assessment tool later this year. (Photo: CIMMYT)
The TAMASA team plans to publish the code and user-friendly interface of this new geospatial assessment tool later this year. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Making profits grow

These tools could potentially help national fertilizer subsidy programs be more targeted and impactful, like the ambitious Ethiopia’s Fertilizer Blending initiative which distributes up to 250,000 tons of fertilizer annually. Initial calculations showed that, by optimizing diammonium phosphate (DAP) and urea application, the profitability per hectare could improve by 14 percent on average, compared to the current fertilizer recommendations.

Such an approach could generate farm-specific advice at scale and boost farmers’ incomes. It could also provide insights on many different issues, like estimating market demand for a new fertilizer blend, or the estimated quantity of additional fertilizer required to bring about a targeted maize yield increase.

Future extensions of the framework may incorporate varietal differences in nutrient management responses, and thus enable seed companies to use the framework to predict where a new maize hybrid would perform best. Similarly, crop breeders could adapt this ex ante assessment tool to weigh the pros and cons of a specific trait and the potential impact for farmers.

The TAMASA team plans to publish the code and user-friendly interface of this new geospatial assessment tool later this year.

Tabitha Kamau checks the maize at her family’s farm in Machakos County, Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Exploring young Africans’ role and engagement in the rural economy

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in Features.

Tabitha Kamau checks the maize at her family’s farm in Machakos County, Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Tabitha Kamau checks the maize at her family’s farm in Machakos County, Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

How do young rural Africans engage in the rural economy? How important is farming relative to non-farm activities for the income of young rural Africans? What social, spatial and policy factors explain different patterns of engagement? These questions are at the heart of an interdisciplinary research project, funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), that seeks to provide stronger evidence for policy and for the growing number of programs in Africa that want to “invest in youth.”

One component of the Challenges and Opportunities for Rural Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa project, led by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), draws on data from the World Bank’s Living Standard Measurement Study – Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) to develop a more detailed picture of young people’s economic activities. These surveys, covering eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa, were conducted at regular intervals and in most cases followed the same households and individuals through time. While the LSMS-ISA are not specialized youth surveys and therefore may not cover all facets of youth livelihoods and wellbeing in detail, they provide valuable knowledge about the evolving patterns of social and economic characteristics of rural African youth and their households.

“LSMS-ISA data are open access, aiming to help national governments and academics analyze the linkages between poverty and agricultural productivity in developing countries,” said Sydney Gourlay, Survey Specialist in the Development Data Group of the World Bank. She explained that LSMS-ISA datasets cover rural and urban livelihoods — including asset ownership, education, farm and non-farm incomes — and contain detailed information on farming practices and productivity. “LSMS-ISA data have untapped potential for valuable youth analyses that could lead to evidence-based youth policy reform,” Gourlay said.

To stimulate greater use of LSMS-ISA data for research on these issues, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), IDS, and the LSMS team of the World Bank organized a workshop for young African social scientists, hosted by CIMMYT in Nairobi from February 4 to February 8, 2019.

Early-career social scientists from Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, and Zimbabwe explored the potential of LSMS-ISA data, identified research issues, and developed strategies to create new analyses. The workshop was also a chance to uncover potential areas for increased data collection on youth, as part of the LSMS team’s IFAD-funded initiative “Improving Data on Women and Youth.”

What does that data point represent?

The workshop stressed the importance of getting to know the data before analyzing them. As explained by World Bank senior economist Talip Kilic in The Crowd and the Cloud, “Every data point has a human story.” It is important to decipher what the data points represent and the limits within which they can be interpreted. For instance, the definition of youth differs by country, so comparative studies across countries must harmonize data from different sources.

“Because LSMS-ISA survey locations are georeferenced, it is possible to integrate spatial information from multiple sources and gain new insights about patterns of interest, as well as the drivers associated with such patterns,” said Jordan Chamberlin, spatial economics expert at CIMMYT. “For example, in all countries we’ve examined, the degree of non-farm economic engagement is strongly associated with distance from urban centers.”

Chamberlin noted that georeferencing also has limitations. For instance, to ensure privacy, LSMS-ISA coordinates for households are randomly offset by as much as 5 km. Nonetheless, diverse geospatial data from the datasets — distance to the nearest tarmac road or population density, among other information — may be integrated via the location coordinates.

A young farmer holding a baby participates in a varietal assessment exercise on a maize trial plot in Machakos County, Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
A young farmer holding a baby participates in a varietal assessment exercise on a maize trial plot in Machakos County, Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

One key variable to assess farm productivity is harvested area. The LSMS team’s research has revealed high, systematic discrepancies between farmers’ self-assessments of area, GPS measurements, and compass and rope, which is considered the most accurate method. Methodological validation data from Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania show that on average farmers overestimate the area of plots smaller than 200 m2 by more than 370 percent and underestimate the size of plots larger than 2 hectares by 13 percent, relative to compass and rope measurements. Such errors can skew yield analyses and the accuracy of assessments of national agricultural research programs’ impact.

Several workshop participants expressed interest in using the LSMS dataset for studies on migration, given that it contains information about this variable. In the case of internal migrants — that is, persons who have moved to another area in the same country — LSMS enumerators will find and interview them and these migrants will continue to be included in future rounds of the panel survey. In Malawi, for example, about 93 percent of individuals were tracked between the 2010/11 and the 2013 Integrated Household Surveys. Plot characteristics — such as type of soil, input use, and crop production — include information on the person who manages the plot, allowing for identification and analysis of male and female managed plots.

Following the training, the participants have better articulated their research ideas on youth. Prospective youth studies from the group include how land productivity affects youth opportunities and whether migration induces greater involvement of women in agriculture or raises the cost of rural labor. Better studies will generate more accurate knowledge to help design more effective youth policies.

 

Philomena Muthoni Mwangi stands at the entrance of her agrodealer shop, Farm Care, in the village of Ngarariga. (Photo: Jerome Bossuet/CIMMYT)

Solving the “last mile” challenge of maize seeds

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in Features.

Philomena Muthoni Mwangi stands at the entrance of her agrodealer shop, Farm Care, in the village of Ngarariga. (Photo: Jerome Bossuet/CIMMYT)
Philomena Muthoni Mwangi stands at the entrance of her agrodealer shop, Farm Care, in the village of Ngarariga. (Photo: Jerome Bossuet/CIMMYT)

Agrodealers play a pivotal role in delivering the gains of the green revolution to millions of smallholders in Africa. Reaching even the most remote corners of the continent, they give farmers access to agricultural inputs and services.

So far, seed systems research has mainly focused on the factors influencing farmers’ adoption of or seed companies’ investment in new varieties. However, little is known about independent agrodealers, who play an important role in the “last mile” of seed systems, distributing improved maize seeds and fertilizers as well as giving agronomic advice. There is a gap of knowledge about who they are, their needs and constraints, and the ways in which they secure and develop their businesses.

Understanding how to better support agrodealers is important for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), to ensure that new varieties reach the largest possible number of farmers. Under the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) project, CIMMYT has launched a new research effort to better understand agrodealers in Kenya, with a specific focus on maize seed marketing.

Researchers are now testing the tools and expect to begin field work in March 2019, during the next maize planting season. “We want to collect detailed quantitative and qualitative data about the way agrodealers outsource and choose their maize varieties, and how they market these seeds to farmers,” explained CIMMYT associate scientist Pieter Rutsaert, who leads the study. This research will help government agencies, NGOs and funders to design better interventions related to agrodealers, for greater and more sustainable impact.

CIMMYT researchers Jason Donovan (left) and Pieter Rutsaert (right) discuss the research study questionnaire with consultant enumerator Victor Kitoto. (Photo: Jerome Bossuet/CIMMYT)
CIMMYT researchers Jason Donovan (left) and Pieter Rutsaert (right) discuss the research study questionnaire with consultant enumerator Victor Kitoto. (Photo: Jerome Bossuet/CIMMYT)

The million-shilling question

The way questions are selected and phrased, and data collected, is critical. “Figuring out how to ask the right question to the right person is a hard business, especially when we ask agrodealers to evaluate their own performance,” recognized Rutsaert. For example, it could be challenging to estimate the importance of maize seed sales if owners are hesitant to provide details about their businesses to outsiders. Anticipating the challenges of collecting reliable and comparable data, Rutsaert’s team will use visual tools, like illustrated cards, to facilitate conversations with interviewees. They will also use innovative exercises, like the shop investment game, where owners are asked how they would invest one million Kenyan shillings (about US$10,000).

Standing behind the counter of her shop, selling bags of feeding supplements for dairy cattle and small pesticide bottles on dusty shelves, Philomena Muthoni Mwangi explained she had run out of maize seeds for sale. This small agrodealer in the village of Ngarariga, in central Kenya, will restock her maize seeds from a big agrovet shop nearby at the onset of the rainy season.

This is quite common, as agrodealers do not take risks when it comes to selling new varieties. Not knowing the future demand, leftover seed stock after the planting season would severely reduce Mwangi’s potential profit, as margins per bag are low. To address this issue, CIMMYT researchers will conduct an intercept farmer survey in the coming weeks, to better understand what farmers look for when buying maize seeds.

Agrodealers are not a homogeneous group. Ranging from large one-stop shops to small shacks, their business models, seed marketing strategy and type of clients may differ a lot. This study will provide useful insights to design targeted seed scaling strategies that consider all kinds of agrodealers, moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach.

The Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) project is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The 70-year-old owner of a farm input shop in Kikuyu town, Kiambu County, answers the questions of CIMMYT researchers. (Photo: Jerome Bossuet/CIMMYT)
The 70-year-old owner of a farm input shop in Kikuyu town, Kiambu County, answers the questions of CIMMYT researchers. (Photo: Jerome Bossuet/CIMMYT)

Breaking Ground: Rahma Adam unleashes the agricultural productivity of Africa’s women and youth

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in Features.

Breaking Ground Rahma Adam

Despite great innovations in African agriculture in recent years, much of the continent still struggles to feed itself. With the population growing at an unprecedented rate, avoiding fatal food insecurity lies in the ability to maximize agricultural capacity.

Sociologist Rahma Adam believes there is one vital resource that remains untapped. One which, when unleashed, will not only increase food security but also boost livelihoods: the human capital of Africa’s women and youth.

“Smallholder production and livelihoods are stifled by the unequal access woman and youth have to farming information and resources, compared to men,” said Adam. “Limited access to land and technical services inhibits their agricultural productivity and holds back the food security of all.”

As a gender and development specialist with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Adam adds a social inclusion lens to Africa’s development dialogue. Her research asks questions as to why women and youth are overrepresented among the poor and how to improve their access to agricultural training and markets.

The interaction between biology and anthropology has fascinated Adam since she was an undergraduate student at Macalester College. However, it was not until researching women and men in the local food markets of her native Dar es Salaam, Tanzania — as part of an exercise for her master’s degree in Public Policy at Harvard University — that she realized how social equity could improve the livelihoods of all African farmers.

“Working alongside farming women, I saw first-hand the disproportionate number of challenges they face to overcome poverty, gather finance for inputs, produce enough food to sustain a family and improve their livelihoods. However, I also saw their potential,” Adam explained.

Inspired to tackle these complex issues, she got her doctoral degree in rural sociology, with a focus on agriculture, gender and international development, from Pennsylvania State University. Following an early career with nonprofits and the World Bank, she joined CIMMYT as a gender and development specialist in 2015.

Since then, Adam has led research on how best to lift the agricultural productivity of women and youth to its full potential. Working with the Sustainable Intensification for Maize-Legumes Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project, she analyzed the role of gender and social inclusion in maize and legume value chains in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique and Tanzania. She also identified intervention points to achieve gender and age equity across various nodes from field to plate, for example among producers, agrodealers, traders, processors and breeders.

“Promoting women and youth participation in agricultural value chains improves food security and livelihoods,” she explained. “Allowing these groups to have a voice and encouraging their leadership in farmer groups promotes their participation in agriculture.”

Partnerships for social inclusion

In eastern and southern Africa’s maize and legume farming systems, research shows that in most cases men have the final decision over maize crop production. Women have increased decision-making power regarding certain legumes, such as cowpeas and groundnuts, as they are mostly only for household consumption.

Adam’s work with SIMLESA found that promoting women’s participation in the production of legumes as cash crops is an opportunity to empower them, increase their household income and their food security.

Connecting women and youth to value chains through Agricultural Innovation Platforms improves their access to markets, credit, farming information and capacity development, she said. These platforms bring together farmers with extension workers, researchers, agrodealers, and NGO practitioners, so they can work together to improve maize and legume conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification.

“It is important policy and development decision makers see that research demonstrates entry points to encourage women and youth to take an active role in value chains and improve productivity,” Adam said.

“You don’t want your research to sit on a shelf. This is why science policy dialogues — like the SIMLESA local, national and regional policy forums taking place this year — are important to ensure that research is introduced into the political landscape.”

An inclusive approach to research

Research must be designed and implemented in a way that women and men, including youth, can participate in and benefit from, Adam explained. They need to be considered in the research process, so they can increase their control of productive assets, participate in decision making, and decrease their labor burdens.

Adam has recently joined CIMMYT’s Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) project to unpack gender issues in the formal maize seed sector. She will examine the relationship between gender and adoption of drought-tolerant and other improved varieties of maize. Adam will also analyze and categorize the differences in maize trait preferences between male and female farmers, and she will develop materials to integrate gender considerations in formal maize seed sector development.

“This information will be used by breeders to develop new maize varieties which are valuable to farmers and therefore have an increased chance of adoption,” the sociologist explained. “It will also help stakeholders get an idea of the rate men and women adopt improved varieties, and how they contribute to the evolution and performance of the seed sector in eastern and southern Africa.”

Providing training and consultation to her peers on gender and social inclusion is another important component of Adam’s work at CIMMYT. In June she will deliver a webinar on gender in research for CGIAR centers. At the end of the year she will participate in a regional seed sector workshop with other CGIAR experts, seed companies and NGOs, to ensure that partners use gender and social inclusion research.

Funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the SIMLESA project was led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in collaboration with the Rwanda Agricultural Board (RAB), CGIAR centers and national agricultural research institutes in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda. Other regional and international partners include the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI) at the University of Queensland, Australia, and the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA).

STMA is implemented by CIMMYT and is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United States of Agency for International Development (USAID).

Mary Munini, a smallholder farmer in Vyulya, in Kenya’s Machakos County, inspects her maize crop. She planted the farm-saved seed, which does not tolerate drought or severe heat, so she is expecting a massive crop loss this season. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Drought-tolerant hybrid seed offers farmers reprieve from hunger

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in Features.

MACHAKOS, Kenya (CIMMYT) — The scorching heat from the sun does not stop Mary Munini, a middle-aged smallholder farmer in Vyulya, Machakos County, from inspecting her distressed maize crop. Traces of worry cloud her face. “I will not harvest anything this season,” she says, visibly downcast.

Like many other smallholder farmers spread across the water-stressed counties of Machakos, Makueni and Kitui, in Kenya’s lower eastern region, Munini is staring at a massive crop loss. Prolonged dry spells have for years threatened the food security and livelihoods of many rural families in the region who depend entirely on rain for their agricultural production. Here, most smallholder farmers typically plant farm-saved maize seeds, which lack the attributes to tolerate harsher droughts, extreme heat or water stress. With such conditions, farmers can hardly harvest any maize.

“We just had a little rain at the start of planting. Since then, we have not had any more rain. As you can see, my maize could not withstand the extended dry spell,” says Munini. Like her, over 80 percent of Kenyans depend on maize as their main staple food to supply their dietary requirements, especially in rural areas.

Mary Munini, a smallholder farmer in Vyulya, in Kenya’s Machakos County, inspects her maize crop. She planted the farm-saved seed, which does not tolerate drought or severe heat, so she is expecting a massive crop loss this season. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Mary Munini, a smallholder farmer in Vyulya, in Kenya’s Machakos County, inspects her maize crop. She planted the farm-saved seed, which does not tolerate drought or severe heat, so she is expecting a massive crop loss this season. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

In a neighboring farm, the situation is different. The owner, Gitau Gichuru, planted the SAWA hybrid, an improved maize seed variety designed to withstand drought conditions. This variety was developed by scientists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and promoted to Kenyan farmers by Dryland Seed, a local seed company. This initiative to improve maize farmers’ climate resilience in the region was possible thanks to the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation under the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) project. With the right agronomic practices, the SAWA hybrid can return a yield advantage of up to 20 percent compared to other popular drought-tolerant hybrids in the region, according to Dryland Seed’s managing director, Ngila Kimotho.

“This variety has become so popular in this region that we have decided to make it our flagship brand. There are occasions when the demand is so high that we run out of stock,” Kimotho says.

Farmer Gitau Gichuru (right) shows maize from his farm to CIMMYT’s regional representative for Africa, Stephen Mugo. Gichuru planted SAWA hybrid maize, developed by CIMMYT scientists. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Farmer Gitau Gichuru (right) shows maize from his farm to CIMMYT’s regional representative for Africa, Stephen Mugo. Gichuru planted SAWA hybrid maize, developed by CIMMYT scientists. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Reaping the benefits

The company distributes improved seeds through a network of about 100 agrodealers across Kenya. One of the most effective ways to promote drought-tolerant hybrids such as SAWA is demonstration plots managed by lead farmers, who can showcase to their peers the hybrid’s performance under recommended agronomic practices. Most of the demo farms are located by the roadside for better visibility to road users, who frequently stop and ask about the healthy-looking maize crop. Field days have also had a positive effect of creating awareness and getting farmers to adopt the SAWA hybrid and other improved seed varieties. Farmers attending field days are ordinarily issued with small seed packs as samples to try out on their farms.

Gichuru, who planted the SAWA hybrid maize seed for the first time last season, is happy with the results. “I decided to try it on a portion of the land that is sandy. We have only had some little rain, twice or so, at the time of planting and during the vegetative state. To be honest, I didn’t expect the crop to amount to anything. But, as you can see, I am looking forward to a good harvest,” Gichuru says.

The managing director of Dryland Seed, Ngila Kimotho (left), shows packages of SAWA maize seeds at the company’s office. (Photo: Jerome Bossuet/CIMMYT)
The managing director of Dryland Seed, Ngila Kimotho (left), shows packages of SAWA maize seeds at the company’s office. (Photo: Jerome Bossuet/CIMMYT)

Doris Muia, a mother of three who has planted the hybrid for two years at her farm, is equally happy with the outcome. She says her household will never lack food and she hopes to get additional income from the sale of the surplus maize produce.

“When we see how the varieties that we have developed such as the SAWA hybrid are putting smiles on farmers’ faces, this makes us very happy,” expresses Stephen Mugo, CIMMYT Regional Representative for Africa.

For some farmers, however, it is hard to gather the money to buy improved seed varieties. The little income Munini earns from her small shop goes towards supporting her children’s education, and she often has nothing left to buy improved hybrid seed varieties, despite being aware of the advantages. In other instances, some farmers often buy small portions of the improved maize variety and mix it with farm-saved seed stock or poor-quality seeds from informal sources.

“The expectation is that if one variety succumbs to drought or severe heat, the next variety may survive. However, with proper agricultural practices, hybrids such as SAWA can cope well against such climate stresses, thereby improving the smallholders’ livelihood and food security,” concludes Mugo.

Doris Muia shows how well SAWA maize is doing at her farm, despite limited rainfall. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Doris Muia shows how well SAWA maize is doing at her farm, despite limited rainfall. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

The Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) project seeks to develop maize cultivars with tolerance and resistance to multiple stresses for farmers, and support local seed companies to produce seed of these cultivars on a large scale. STMA aims to develop a new generation of over 70 improved stress tolerant maize varieties, and facilitate production and use of over 54,000 metric tons of certified seed.

The STMA project is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID.

Farmers visit a field from Total LandCare demonstrating conservation agriculture for sustainable intensification practices in Angónia, Tete province, Mozambique.

Policy forum in Mozambique recommends scaling sustainable agriculture practices

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in Features.

A woman stands on a field intercropping beans and maize in Sussundenga, Manica province, Mozambique. (Photo: Luis Jose Cabango)
A woman stands on a field intercropping beans and maize in Sussundenga, Manica province, Mozambique. (Photo: Luis Jose Cabango)

For many small farmers across sub-Saharan Africa, the crop yields their livelihoods depend on are affected by low-quality inputs and severe challenges like climate change, pests and diseases. Unsustainable farming practices like monocropping are impacting soil health and reducing the productivity of their farms.

Sustainable intensification practices based on conservation agriculture entail minimal soil disturbance, recycling crop plant matter to cover and replenish the soil, and diversified cropping patterns. These approaches maintain moisture, reduce erosion and curb nutrient loss. Farmers are encouraged and supported to intercrop maize with nitrogen-fixing legumes — such as beans, peas and groundnuts — which enrich the soil with key nutrients. Farmers are equally advised to cultivate their crops along with trees, instead of deforesting the land to create room for farming.

These practices result in higher incomes for farmers and better food and nutrition for families. Adopting conservation agriculture also improves farmers’ climate resilience. Combined with good agronomic practices, conservation agriculture for sustainable intensification can increase yields up to 38 percent.

Since 2010, the Sustainable Intensification of Maize and Legume Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project has promoted effective ways to produce more food while protecting the environment across Eastern and Southern Africa. In particular, the SIMLESA project aims at sustainably increasing the productivity of maize and legume systems in the region.

The SIMLESA project demonstrated the advantages of deploying low-carbon and low-cost mechanization adapted to smallholder farming: it addresses labor shortages at critical times like planting or weeding, boosting farmers’ productivity and yields. The SIMLESA project introduced mechanization in different phases: first improved manual tools like the jab planter, later draft power machinery innovations such as rippers, and finally motorized mechanization in the form of small four-wheel tractors.

Farmers visit a field from Total LandCare demonstrating conservation agriculture for sustainable intensification practices in Angónia, Tete province, Mozambique.
Farmers visit a field from Total LandCare demonstrating conservation agriculture for sustainable intensification practices in Angónia, Tete province, Mozambique.

From proof of concept to nation-wide adoption

In Mozambique, conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification practices have significantly expanded: from 36 farmers in six villages in four districts in 2010, to over 190,000 farmers in more than 100 villages in nine districts by the end of 2018. This remarkable result was achieved in collaboration with partners such as the Mozambican Agricultural Research Institute (IIAM), extension workers, communities and private companies.

“Smallholder agriculture mechanization reduced the amount of labor required for one hectare of land preparation, from 31 days to just 2 hours. This enabled timely farming activities and a maize yield increase of about 170 kg per hectare, reflecting an extra 3-4 months of household food security,” said the national coordinator for SIMLESA in Mozambique, Domingos Dias.

Following its successes, SIMLESA and its partners have embarked on a series of meetings to discuss how to leverage public-private partnerships to expand conservation agriculture practices to other regions.

Throughout February and March 2019, a series of policy forums at sub-national and national levels will be held across the seven SIMLESA countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

The first policy dialogue took place on February 7 in Chimoio, in Mozambique’s district of Manica. Key agriculture stakeholders attended, including representatives from CIMMYT, IIAM, the Ministry of Agriculture, as well as policy makers, private sector partners and international research institutes.

Participants of the SIMLESA policy forum in Chimoio, Manica province, Mozambique, pose for a group photo.
Participants of the SIMLESA policy forum in Chimoio, Manica province, Mozambique, pose for a group photo.

“We are delighted at SIMLESA’s unique strategy of involving multiple partners in implementing conservation agriculture for sustainable intensification practices. This has, over the years, allowed for faster dissemination of these practices and technologies in more locations in Mozambique, thereby increasing its reach to more farmers,” said Albertina Alage, Technical Director for Technology Transfer at IIAM. “Such policy forums are important to showcase the impact of conservation agriculture to policy makers to learn and sustain their support for scaling up conservation agriculture for sustainable intensification,” she added.

Forum participants called for better coordination between the public and the private sector to deliver appropriate machinery for use by smallholders in new areas. They recommended adequate support to enable farmers to better integrate livestock and a diverse cropping system, as well as continue with conservation agriculture trials and demonstration activities. Besides involving farmers, their associations and agro-dealer networks in scaling conservation agriculture initiatives, participants agreed to promote integrated pest and disease management protocols. This is considering the recent outbreak of the fall armyworm, which devasted crops in many countries across sub-Saharan Africa.

“The SIMLESA project is and will always be a reference point for our research institute and the Ministry of Agriculture in our country. The good progress of SIMLESA and the results of this forum will help to draw strategies for continuity of this program implemented by government and other programs with the aim to increase production and productivity of farmers,” Alage concluded.

The SIMLESA project is a science for development alliance, funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), in collaboration with national research institutes in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.

Seeds go digital

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in News.

Seed Assure app testing in the field in Kiboko, Kenya. Photo credit: CIMMYT.
Seed Assure app testing in the field in Kiboko, Kenya. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Many Kenyan maize farmers are busy preparing their seed stock for the next planting season. Sowing high quality seeds of stress-tolerant varieties is a cost-effective way for African smallholder farmers to boost their harvests while being resilient to evolving crop pests and diseases as well as an erratic climate. However, even if a majority of farmers buy their seeds, they are often of dubious quality or of old, outdated varieties, which do not cope well against increasing drought and heat shocks or emerging diseases.

Insufficient seed quality control

The African seed sector has long been plagued by counterfeit seeds and a complex and costly certification process, which hampers access to better, higher-yielding, wide-ranging varieties for farmers.

Since the 1990s, national agencies could not keep up with the seed trade growth to handle the certification processes. Backlogs of certification requests and erroneous seed checks make it costly for private seed companies to produce and commercialize new varieties. As a result, maize varieties grown by farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are old: 28 years old on average for hybrids and up to 40 years old for open-pollinated varieties.

“A lot of the national certification systems in the region are overwhelmed. They do not have enough seed inspectors with proper training and tools to carry out compliance checks effectively and in a timely manner. The licensing, labeling and branding protocols and regulations are equally not in full force, and much of the work still needs to be digitized. This slows the entire process,” said Kate Fehlenberg, Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa Seed Scaling (DTMASS) Project Manager at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), at a recent Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) seed policies’ harmonization event in Nairobi.

Go digital

To solve this certification bottleneck, seed actors are looking at digital solutions for faster, more accurate seed quality checks for both seed producers and regulators. One Kenyan company, Cellsoft Ltd., has developed SeedAssure, a cloud-based platform that enables digital seed inspections. Data necessary for quality seed production, pest and disease surveillance, and the required checks to apply for a commercial license can be shared in real-time on a common platform that links seed companies, inspectors and local authorities.  Such a tool not only enables optimal quality in seed production, but expedites the licensing, certification and trade processes with traceable data records.

SeedAssure is rapidly being rolled out across eastern and southern Africa with support across the seed value chain. This includes regional trade bodies like COMESA and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), national regulators such as the Seed Control and Certification Institute (SCCI), to research and development organizations like CIMMYT and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). So far, 15 seed companies in seven countries in the region have been testing SeedAssure.

Transboundary data-sharing to boost regional seed trade

Kinyua Madhan from Zamseed and Nicolai NASECO testing SeedAssure on smartphone in the field in Kiboko, Kenya. Photo credit: CIMMYT.
Visitors test SeedAssure on a smartphone during a field visit in Kiboko, Kenya. (Photo: CIMMYT)

To boost regional seed trade, all actors along the seed value chain and across the region must embrace this digital revolution and “speak the same language”. This means adopting the same rules to identify and register a new variety, and using a common platform to easily share data between countries.

Currently, despite efforts to harmonize seed trade policies across the region, such as the COMESA Seed Harmonization Implementation Program (COMSHIP), passed in 2014, most countries still use different protocols to name and register seed varieties. One variety could have a different name in each country it is sold in. Data used for quality control are still often on paper rather than online, with each country performing its own tests. Seed companies must apply for new variety registration, with new data for each country they operate in. This all costs them time and money.

Adopting a unique identifier for seed products and digitalization can help alleviate this harmonization issue, easing comparable data sharing across border. Since November 2017, CIMMYT has adopted a Variety Identification Number (VIN) system. It is like a unique barcode for each variety which contains information about the organization that produced the variety, the year of release, the crop and specific traits such as drought-tolerance, the country where it is produced, etc. SADC and COMESA have just adopted this VIN system. COMSHIP is setting digital seed variety catalogues using the VIN, and soon regional seed labels. It will facilitate cross-border seed trade and help track seed fraud.

The  2019 Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) held this week in Berlin is debating how digitalization is transforming the farming sector. This is particularly relevant for the African seed sector as digital innovations could make seed certification and quality control cheaper, faster and more transparent, while narrowing the space for fake seed. Seed companies would then be encouraged to release more new improved varieties, and ultimately accelerate our research impact for African farmers.

Delegates of the 3-year review conference pose for a group photograph at the ICRAF Campus in Nairobi. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

International coalition keeps devastating maize disease at bay, but risks still linger

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in Features.

NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) — When maize lethal necrosis (MLN) was first reported in Bomet County, Kenya, in September 2011 and spread rapidly to several countries in eastern Africa, agricultural experts feared this emerging maize disease would severely impact regional food security. However, a strong partnership across eight countries between maize research, plant health organizations and the private seed sector has, so far, managed to contain this devastating viral disease, which can wipe out entire maize fields. As another emerging pest, the fall armyworm, is making headlines in Africa, African countries could learn a lot from the initiatives to combat MLN on how to rapidly respond to emerging crop pests and diseases.

On November 19-20, 2018, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), national research and plant protection agencies and seed companies met in Nairobi to review the third year’s progress of the MLN Diagnostics and Management Project, supported by USAID. All participants agreed that preventing any spread of the disease into southern Africa was a great success.

“The fact that we all responded rapidly and productively to this crisis serves as a testament of the success of our collective efforts,” said CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program Director, B.M. Prasanna, while addressing delegates from Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. “That no new country has reported the MLN outbreak since Ethiopia last reported it in the 2014-2015 period, and that we have managed to keep it at bay from southern Africa and west Africa is no mean feat. It would have been a major food security disaster if the disease had spread throughout sub-Saharan Africa.”

However, the MLN Community of Practice warned that risks of severe outbreaks remain, with new cases of MLN reported during the MLN 2018 survey in several parts of Uganda.

Delegates from Rwanda discuss the country's workplan at the 3-year MLN project review. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Delegates from Rwanda discuss the country’s workplan at the 3-year MLN project review. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Rapid response to a food security threat

MLN is caused by the combination of the maize chlorotic mottle virus (MCMV) and other common cereal viruses mostly from the potyviridae family — a set of viruses that encompasses over 30 percent of known plant viruses — like the sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV). This viral disease can result in up to 100 percent yield loss and has devastated the incomes and food security situation of many smallholder farmers in the region.

CIMMYT, in collaboration with national agricultural research institutions, national plant protection agencies and seed sector partners, developed a multi-layered response system including real-time intensive surveillance, screening, and fast-tracking of the MLN resistance breeding program. Thanks to the MLN Screening Facility in Naivasha, Kenya, maize breeders rapidly discovered that most popular maize varieties were susceptible, which could expose poor farmers to the risk of losing their entire maize crops.

Using its global collection of maize lines and numerous crop improvement innovations, CIMMYT was able to develop and release at least 15 MLN-resistant maize varieties in just 2 to 3 years.

One important step was to understand how the disease spread. Epidemiologists quickly pointed out the necessity to work with the seed companies and farmers, as the virus could be transmitted through seeds. The project helped put in place the protocols for seed firms to adhere to for their products to be MLN-free. Affordable and simple seed treatment procedures yielded promising results. The project also created awareness on better farming methods for effective disease control.

National Plant Protection Organizations were mobilized to create intensive awareness. They were also equipped and trained on low-cost innovative field diagnostic tools like MLN immunostrips and the deployment of GPS-based mobile surveillance and reporting systems.

“For the first time, Rwanda was able to conduct a comprehensive survey on MLN in farmers’ fields, commercial seed fields and at agro-dealers. We are glad that through MLN management and awareness programs within the project, MLN incidences have declined,” said Fidele Nizeyimana, maize breeder and pathologist at the Rwanda Agricultural Board (RAB) and the MLN Surveillance team lead in Rwanda.

“Equally important is that the commercial seed sector took the responsibility of testing their seed production fields, made sure that seed exchange is done in a responsible manner and implemented voluntary monitoring and surveillance within their fields,” remarked Francis Mwatuni, MLN project manager at CIMMYT.

“I am happy that Malawi has maintained its MLN-free status as per the intensive MLN surveillance activities we conducted in the country over the last three years,” noted Johnny Masangwa, senior research officer and MLN Surveillance team lead in Malawi. “We are now able to monitor both seed and grain movement through our borders for MLN traces, courtesy of the lab equipment, reagents and training on laboratory analysis we received through the project”.

B.M. Prasanna, director of the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE), discusses what the CGIAR offers in rapid response preparedness to newly emerging pests, diseases and crises.

The maize sector should remain vigilant

Daniel Bomet, maize breeder at Uganda’s National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO), warned that with new infections reported in the northern parts of his country, the maize sector needs to remain alert to the threat of MLN. “We need to step up MLN awareness and management programs, and require seed companies to follow the right procedures to produce MLN-free seeds to arrest this trend,” he said.

Tanzania Seed Association Executive Director, Bob Shuma, also warned that MLN could be spreading to the southern highlands of the country as the virus was detected in some seed shipments from three seed companies operating in that region. A comprehensive MLN survey in Tanzania will hopefully soon give an idea of the countrywide status of the disease in the country.

Conference speakers and participants noted that inefficient regulatory processes in maize seed variety release and deployment still stand in the way of rapid release of MLN resistant varieties to farmers across the region.

“How quickly we scale up and deploy the elite MLN-resistant and stress-tolerant varieties to the farmer is the next most important phase of the project,” Prasanna said.

The Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS) General Manager, Phytosanitary Services, Isaac Macharia, said that with the support of the USAID Feed the Future program, the government agency has set up a team dedicated to assisting seed companies doing seed multiplication to fast-track the release of the MLN-resistant varieties to the market. Some Kenyan seed companies announced they will market MLN-resistant varieties for the next cropping season in March 2019.

As the project enters its last year, the MLN Community of Practice looks to ensure the fully functional pest surveillance and management system it has put in place is sustainable beyond the project’s life.

CIMMYT researchers Dave Hodson (left) and Francis Mwatuni (center) discuss MLN issues with another delegate during the 3-year MLN project review workshop. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
CIMMYT researchers Dave Hodson (left) and Francis Mwatuni (center) discuss MLN issues with another delegate during the 3-year MLN project review workshop. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Mechanization could boost Ethiopian wheat production and provide youth with new job opportunities. (Photo: Gerardo Mejía/CIMMYT)

A wheat self-sufficiency roadmap for Ethiopia’s future

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in Features.

The Ethiopian government announced recently that the country should become wheat self-sufficient over the next four years. Why is boosting domestic wheat production important for this country in the Horn of Africa, and could wheat self-sufficiency be attained in the next four years? The Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR), with the support of International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), gathered agriculture and food experts from the government, research and private sectors on November 23, 2018, to draw the first outlines of this new Ethiopian wheat initiative.

The low-tech domestic wheat farming and price support issue

Despite a record harvest of 4.6 million metric tons in 2017, Ethiopia imported 1.5 million tons of wheat the same year, costing US$600 million. Population growth, continuous economic growth and urbanization over the last decade has led to a rapid change in Ethiopian diets, and the wheat sector cannot keep up with the growing demand for pasta, dabo, ambasha and other Ethiopian breads.

The majority of Ethiopia’s 4.2 million wheat farmers cultivate this cereal on an average of 1.2-hectare holdings, with three quarters produced in Arsi, Bale and Shewa regions. Most prepare the land and sow with draft animal power equipment and few inputs, dependent on erratic rainfall without complementary irrigation. Yields have doubled over the last 15 years and reached 2.7 tons per hectare according to the latest agricultural statistics, but are still far from the yield potential.

According to data from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), wheat is preferred by wealthier, urban families, who consume 33 percent more wheat than rural households. Ethiopia needs to rethink its wheat price support system, which does not incentivize farmers and benefits mostly the wealthier, urban consumers. Wheat price support subsidies could, for instance, target bakeries located in poor neighborhoods.

Where to start to boost wheat productivity?

Ethiopia’s Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Eyasu Abraha, welcomes conference participants. (Photo: Jérôme Bossuet/CIMMYT)
Ethiopia’s Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Eyasu Abraha, welcomes conference participants. (Photo: Jérôme Bossuet/CIMMYT)

Ethiopia, especially in the highlands, has an optimum environment to grow wheat. But to make significant gains, the wheat sector needs to identify what limiting factors to address first. The Wheat initiative, led by Ethiopia’s Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), has targeted 2,000 progressive farmers across 41 woredas (districts) between 2013 and 2018, to promote the use of improved and recommended inputs and better cropping techniques within their communities. A recent IFPRI impact study showed a 14 percent yield increase, almost enough to substitute wheat imports if scaled up across the country. It is, however, far from the doubling of yields expected initially. The study shows that innovations like row planting were not widely adopted because of the additional labor required.

Hans Braun, WHEAT CGIAR research program and CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program director, believes Ethiopian farmers can achieve self-sufficiency if they have the right seeds, the right agronomy and the right policy support.

One priority is to increase support for wheat improvement research to make wheat farmers more resilient to new diseases and climate shocks. Drought and heat tolerance, rust resistance and high yields even in low-fertility soils are some of the factors sought by wheat farmers.

International collaboration in durum wheat breeding is urgently needed as the area under durum wheat is declining in Ethiopia due to climate change, diseases and farmers switching to more productive and resilient bread wheat varieties. Braun advises that Ethiopia set up a shuttle breeding program with CIMMYT in Mexico, as Kenya did for bread wheat, to develop high-yielding and stress-resistant varieties. Such a shuttle breeding program between Ethiopia and Mexico would quickly benefit Ethiopian durum wheat farmers, aiming at raising their yields similar to those of Mexican farmers in the state of Sonora, who harvest more than 7 tons per hectare under irrigation. This would require a policy reform to facilitate the exchange of durum germplasm between Ethiopia and Mexico, as it is not possible at the moment.

Ethiopia also needs to be equipped to respond quickly to emerging pests and diseases. Five years ago, a new stem rust (TKTTF, also called Digalu race) damaged more than 20,000 hectares of wheat in Arsi and Bale, as Digalu — the popular variety used by local farmers — was sensitive to this new strain. The MARPLE portable rust testing lab, a fast and cost-effective rust surveillance system, is now helping Ethiopian plant health authorities quickly identify new rust strains and take preventive actions to stop new outbreaks.

CIMMYT’s representative in Ethiopia, Bekele Abeyo, gives an interview for Ethiopian media during the conference. (Photo: Jérôme Bossuet/CIMMYT)
CIMMYT’s representative in Ethiopia, Bekele Abeyo, gives an interview for Ethiopian media during the conference. (Photo: Jérôme Bossuet/CIMMYT)

Invest in soil health, mechanization and gender

In addition to better access to improved seeds and recommended inputs, better agronomic practices are needed. Scaling the use of irrigation would certainly increase wheat yields, but experts warn not to dismiss adequate agronomic research — knowing the optimal water needs of the crop for each agroecological zone — and the underlying drainage system. Otherwise, farmers are at risk of losing their soils forever due to an accumulation of salt.

‘’2.5 billion tons of topsoil are lost forever every year due to erosion. A long-term plan to address soil erosion and low soil fertility should be a priority,” highlights Marco Quinones, adviser at ATA. For instance, large-scale lime application can solve the important issue of acid soils, where wheat does not perform well. But it requires several years before the soil can be reclaimed and visible yield effects can be seen.

CIMMYT gender and development specialist Kristie Drucza talks about innovation barriers for female-headed households linked to gender norms in Ethiopia. (Photo: Jérôme Bossuet/CIMMYT)
CIMMYT gender and development specialist Kristie Drucza talks about innovation barriers for female-headed households linked to gender norms in Ethiopia. (Photo: Jérôme Bossuet/CIMMYT)

Mechanization could also boost Ethiopian wheat production and provide youth with new job opportunities. Recent research showed smallholder farmers can benefit from six promising two-wheel tractor (2WT) technologies. Identifying the right business models and setting up adapted training programs and financial support will help the establishment of viable machinery service providers across the country.

Better gender equity will also contribute significantly to Ethiopia becoming self-sufficient in wheat production. Women farmers, especially female-headed households, do not have the same access to trainings, credit, inputs or opportunities to experiment with new techniques or seed varieties because of gender norms. Gender transformative methodologies, like community conversations, can help identify collective ways to address such inequalities, which cost over one percent of GDP every year.

‘’With one third better seeds, one third good agronomy and one third good policies, Ethiopia will be able to be wheat self-sufficient,” concluded Braun. A National Wheat Taskforce led by EIAR will start implementing a roadmap in the coming days, with the first effects expected for the next planting season in early 2019.

The consultative workshop “Wheat Self-Sufficiency in Ethiopia: Challenges and Opportunities” took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on November 23, 2018.

CIMMYT drought tolerant maize: A key innovation for millions of farmers, says FAO

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in Features.

As climate experts forecast another climate-warming El Nino in early 2019, maize varieties developed under the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) initiative represent low-cost innovations that could improve the crop’s climate resilience and the livelihoods of millions family farmers across Africa, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Drought tolerant (DT) maize was among 20 success stories featured at the Innovation Fair of the International Symposium on Agricultural Innovation for Family Farmers, organized and hosted by FAO in Rome from 21 to 23 November, 2018. Drawing more than 500 participants from farmer associations, international organizations, United Nations agencies, governments, research institutions and the private sector, the Fair aimed to devise and recommend actions that unlock the potential of agricultural innovation.

Drought-tolerant seeds: An affordable and effective way to cope with dry weather

‘’Since early 1990s, farmers in Zimbabwe face erratic rains and maize crops often fail due to frequent droughts,’’ said Cosmos Magorokosho, maize breeder based at the Harare, Zimbabwe, office of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

Led by CIMMYT, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Howard Buffett Foundation, and involving 13 national maize breeding programs and various seed companies across Africa, DTMA is responsible for more than 160 new maize varieties, including 15 in Zimbabwe that yield 25 to 30 percent more than conventional varieties under dry conditions and perform as well as those varieties under normal rainfall. The latter was crucial for convincing seed companies to take up and market DT maize, according to Magorokosho.

In one study in drought-prone southern Zimbabwe, farmers using the DT varieties in dry years were able to harvest up to 600 kilograms more maize per hectare — worth $240 and enough maize for 9 months for an average family of 6 people — than farmers who sowed conventional varieties. The added food security comes at no additional cost and, if farmers choose to sell the grain, it brings extra income for other household needs.

Under the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa initiative, CIMMYT and partners are continuing to develop maize varieties that cope not only with drought but with common constraints such as insect pests, diseases including Maize Lethal Necrosis and infertile soils.

Public-private partnerships enable demand-driven innovation

Adopting new technology or practices can represent unacceptable risks for resource-poor farming families, who live without the official safety nets enjoyed by peers in prosperous economies and will simply starve if their crops fail. Involving farmers, seed companies and other end users in development is essential for agricultural innovations to be widely adopted and sustainable, according to Bram Govaerts, global director of innovative business strategies at CIMMYT.

“Dialogue with global food processing companies can create market opportunities for smallholder farmers through approaches like local, responsible sourcing,’’ said Govaerts, speaking during the fair’s panel ‘Engaging the private sector to accelerate agricultural innovation.’

“More than 3,300 Mexican farmers on more than 35,000 hectares in 5 states will benefit from responsible sourcing arrangements, whereby the companies pay them to grow the grain using sustainable farming practices,” Govaerts explained, adding that the farmers will supply an estimated 400,000 tons of grain to participating companies in the next 3 to 5 years.

Mexico’s Agriculture Department (SAGARPA) supports these and other public-private partnerships through its investments in MasAgro, which studies, develops and transfers innovative farming practices and technologies to the field, with emphasis on family farmers.

In September, the FAO’s Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean acknowledged MasAgro as a replicable and scalable initiative that could contribute significantly to sustainable rural development in that region.

These two impactful examples show that agricultural innovation can only succeed through well-thought research and development partnerships, and building such collaborations is a science in itself.

Wheat fields in the Arsi highlands, Ethiopia, 2015. (Photo: CIMMYT/ Peter Lowe)

Ethiopian experts push for wheat self-sufficiency

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in Press releases.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (CIMMYT) — Ethiopia’s leading agriculture and policy specialists will craft a new strategy to dramatically raise national wheat production and achieve self-sufficiency for the crop by 2022, at a special conference organized by the Government of Ethiopia and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) for November 23, 2018.

Annual imports to satisfy Ethiopia’s demand for wheat — one of the country’s four key food crops — now cost more than $600 million and expose national food security to capricious global price shifts for grain, according to Mandefro Nigussie, Director General of the Ethiopian Institute of Agriculture (EIAR).

“Ethiopians now consume some 6.5 million tons per year but the country’s 4.2 million households grow only 4.6 million tons on 1.7 million hectares and demand for the crop is rising, as more people move to cities and change in life style,” Nigussie explained.

National wheat yields are steadily climbing but still average only 2.7 tons per hectare; well below global standards, according to Bekele Abeyo, CIMMYT wheat scientist and Ethiopia country representative.

“There’s great potential to expand irrigated wheat production, especially in the lowlands along the major river basins,” Nigussie said. “In the Ethiopian highlands, wheat’s traditional environment, more farmers need to use high-yielding, disease resistant seed and modern farming practices. Even modest levels of technology adoption can provide yields as high as 4 tons per hectare.” Wheat yield can also be increased significantly by treating acidic soils and by making broad-beds in vertisol soil areas.

Called “Wheat Self-Sufficiency in Ethiopia: Challenges and Opportunities,” the consultative workshop builds on recent successes and lessons in Ethiopia of the Wheat Initiative, an international partnership of private and public organizations that conducts wheat research for food security and to help wheat farmers in diverse environments to improve and stabilize their yields.

To be held in the Hiruy Meeting Hall at the headquarters of the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), Addis Ababa, the event will draw some 70 participants, including representatives of Ethiopia’s ministries of agriculture, EIAR, regional agricultural research institutes, the Ethiopian Seed Enterprise, Oromia Seed Enterprise, and the Agricultural Transformation Agency. Adding their experience and ideas will be experts on wheat trade, irrigation and energy, finance and economic cooperation, along with representatives from the Regional Bureau of Agriculture, millers associations, funding agencies, and global organizations including the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

“Aims will include strengthening wheat research and development partnerships, tapping into policies that foster competitive and profitable wheat farming, and supporting national efforts both to reduce imports and end poverty and food insecurity,” Abeyo explained. Kristie Drucza, Gender and Development Specialist at CIMMYT, also notes that, “We see striking opportunities to raise productivity by empowering women in wheat farming, fostering their access to knowledge, technology, and financial resources and their voice in decision making.”

WHAT:
“Wheat Self-Sufficiency in Ethiopia: Challenges and Opportunities” conference

WHEN:
Friday, November 23, 2018

WHERE:
Hiruy Meeting Hall
Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR)
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
https://goo.gl/maps/YPN5vuGb5qB2

For more information, to attend the conference or for media interviews, please contact

Jerome Bossuet, Communications Officer, CIMMYT. J.Bossuet@cgiar.org

Ethiopia and CIMMYT. Since 1970, Ethiopian farmers have had access to more than 100 high-yielding bread and durum wheat varieties developed and spread through collaboration among EIAR, Ethiopia’s regional agricultural research institutes, and CIMMYT, whose work has contributed to 70 percent of Ethiopia’s wheat varietal development. Use of these high-yielding, disease resistant varieties, along with supportive government policies and better cropping practices, have caused Ethiopia’s average annual wheat production to grow more than double since the early 2000s.

Affordable grain drying and storage technologies cut down aflatoxins

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in News.

NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) — Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa lose up to a third of their grain after harvest because they often use poor grain storage technologies and ineffective drying practices. Staples like maize stored on-farm are exposed to infestation by insects and fungi. These can lead to contamination with mycotoxins, in particular aflatoxins, poisonous food toxins produced by Aspergillus fungi.

At high doses, aflatoxins can kill. Prolonged exposure to aflatoxins can impact consumers’ health, suppressing immune systems, hindering child growth and even causing liver cancer. Kenya is a particular hotspot for aflatoxins, as regular studies show widespread contamination along the food chain, from maize grain to milk and meat.

Preliminary findings of a study by USAID-funded Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Processing and Post-Harvest Handling (FPL) suggest that innovative low-cost grain drying and storage technologies such as hermetic bags and hygrometers could prevent post-harvest crop losses and harmful aflatoxin contamination.

The initial results were shared at a workshop in Nairobi on October 25, 2018, as part of the FPL project, which aims to develop and disseminate affordable and effective post-harvest technologies suited to the African smallholder farmer. This project is a collaboration between the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) and Purdue University.

A study conducted between May 2017 and May 2018 in Kiboko, Kenya, compared the performance of various hermetic storage containers and bags by different manufacturers with farmers’ usual storage practices. Researchers measured maize grain quality parameters such as grain damage, weight loss in storage, fungal growth and mycotoxins, food quality and seed germination. The results showed hermetic bags were highly effective in averting grain loss for up to one year.

“If these bags are sealed properly, oxygen cannot get in or out. This creates an anaerobic environment that suffocates grain-damaging insects and prevents fungi from growing” says CIMMYT economist Hugo De Groote.

Making hermetic storage more accessible

The Africa Technical Research Center (ATRC) is involved in the development of some of the hermetic bags that were tested during the study. ATRC director Johnson Odera noted that most of the insect infestations start in the field. “When the farmer harvests and transports the maize home, the grain is already infested,” Odera explained. “The damage can be extensive depending on the level of infestation. One of the ways to minimize the losses, while keeping the food safe for consumption is to use hermetic bags”.

These bags, however, remain largely unavailable to smallholder farmers, according to the study. This is mainly due to farmers’ low awareness levels and the high cost of hermetic bags. Unlike normal storage bags that cost about $0.7 each, hermetic bags retail for $2 to $2.5.

A second study, conducted with maize producers and traders in Kakamega, western Kenya, suggests that dropping prices by 20 percent had the potential to increase sales by 88 percent.

This study further suggested that farmers can benefit a lot from using low-cost hygrometers to accurately measure moisture content in maize. Grain is quickly spoiled by fungi contamination if it is not dry enough when stored. One or two percent lower moisture levels can make a big difference in reducing aflatoxin contamination.

“Farmers could put maize grain samples in a plastic bag and insert low-cost hygrometers to read moisture content after temperature is stabilized in 15 minutes,” says Purdue University professor Jacob Ricker-Gilbert. “They then know if their grain is safe enough for storage or not. However, standard hygrometers cost around $100, which is out of reach for many small farmers.”

Purdue University, CIMMYT and KALRO conducted a market survey in 2017 among maize farmers and traders in Kenya to assess their willingness to buy low-cost hygrometers. The survey found that farmers were willing to pay an average price of $1.21 for a hygrometer, while traders said they would buy at $1.16 each. The project was able to get cheap and reliable hygrometers at less than one dollar, opening the door for possible commercialization. One company, Bell Industries, has started to market the devices as a pilot.

Raising farmers and policymakers’ awareness on appropriate storage and drying technologies is now a priority for scientists working on the FPL project, which will hopefully lead to less maize spoiled and better food safety.

Reaching out to millions of smallholder farmers: exploring collaboration with Shamba Shape-Up

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on . Posted in News.

On October 22, David Campbell, CEO of Mediae, and his team presented their TV and digital education and development programs to International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) staff in Nairobi, Kenya. Mediae is a media company producing the iconic Shamba Shape Up, a weekly farming education TV series watched in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

The purpose of the meeting was to explore the possibility of partnership between CIMMYT and Mediae. Farmer education programs like Shamba Shape Up can showcase CIMMYT’s innovations to millions of farmers. Better awareness could lead to increased adoption of innovations and enhance household incomes, as well as food and nutritional security.

Other education and extension programs include Shamba Chef, which targets women with information about nutrition and family finance, and iShamba, an information service that provides over 350,000 farmers with information on market prices, the weather forecast and tips on crop and animal production.

Since 2013, Shamba Shape Up has run weekly episodes in English and Swahili on Kenya’s Citizen TV, reaching an estimated at 3.5 million people, 70 percent of whom live in rural areas. This “edutainment” program highlights challenges smallholders face in their farming activities. Farm advisories range from crop production, animal husbandry and soil fertility, to seeds, pests and diseases, and climate change adaptation strategies. Usually, highlighted farmers narrate the issues on their farm to a TV presenter while an expert from the private or non-profit sector offers advice on remedial measures. This helps the farmer to improve their productivity and livelihood. Campbell believes that “a mix of entertainment and research elements have enabled the program to remain relevant and sustainably serve large, diverse audiences.”

Shamba Shape-Up

A farmer measures his crop. (Image: Shamba Shape Up)

In April 2014, CIMMYT and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) were featured in a Shamba Shape Up episode. The broadcast showcased a maize farmer whose crop production had been devastated by striga, a parasitic weed that had infested over 300,000 hectares of maize in western Kenya. Farmers were advised to plant IR maize, a new herbicide-coated seed variety that is immune to striga and can kill it, and this helped to stop the spread of striga in the region. A more recent episode featuring CIMMYT’s efforts to instill sustainable intensification practices among farmers was aired in February 2018.

Campbell and his team have observed that while millions of farmers enjoy their education programs, many fail to continue applying expert advice on good agricultural practices, such as conservation farming, on their own farms. One particular challenge and area with scope for collaboration is to conduct proper impact evaluation of education programs on farming practices changes and livelihoods.