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.
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.
Taking maize agronomy to scale in Africa Q&A
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.
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.
New publications: Small businesses, potentially large impacts
A recent study by socioeconomists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Bangladesh examined the role of fertilizer traders in influencing farmer decision-making on which fertilizer to apply and at what rate.
In developing countries, the emerging private sector is gradually filling the gap between supply and demand of agricultural extension services. In Bangladesh, most farmers still rely on either their own experience or that of their peers, but increasingly seek suggestions from traders when deciding on the amount and dose of fertilizer to be applied, due to the constraints associated with public agricultural extension services. These private fertilizer traders are increasingly prominent as information sources in the more accessible, intensive and commercially-oriented boro rice production systems.
Using primary data collected from 556 randomly selected farm households in Bangladesh, the study examined farmers’ chemical fertilizer use and the associated rice production efficiency based on different information sources that farmers rely on, such as fertilizer traders, government extension agents, and personal experience.
The research show that farmers who relied on traders statistically had a higher production efficiency than those who did not. These results suggest that fertilizer traders are in fact supplementing government agricultural extension activities by providing useful information which supports resource-poor farmers to mitigate market failures and achieve higher production efficiency.
Read the full article “Small businesses, potentially large impacts: the role of fertilizer traders as agricultural extension agents in Bangladesh” in the Journal of Agribusiness in Developing and Emerging Economies.
This study was supported by USAID through the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia – Mechanization and Irrigation (CSISA-MI) project, as well as USAID and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through the second phase of the CSISA project.
Read more recent publications by CIMMYT researchers:
- Ten years of conservation agriculture in a rice–maize rotation of Eastern Gangetic Plains of India: yield trends, water productivity and economic profitability. 2019. Jat, R.K., Ravi Gopal Singh, Kumar, M., Jat, M.L., Parihar, C.M., Bijarniya, D., Sutaliya, J.M., Jat, M.K., Parihar M.D., Kakraliya Suresh Kumar, Gupta, R.K. In: Field Crops Research v. 232, p. 1-10.
- Exploiting genotype x environment x management interactions to enhance maize productivity in Ethiopia. 2019. Seyoum, S., Rachaputi, R., Fekybelu, S., Chauhan, Y., Prasanna, B.M. In: European Journal of Agronomy v. 103, p. 165-174.
- Yield response to plant density, row spacing and raised beds in low latitude spring wheat with ample soil resources: an update. 2019. Fischer, R.A., Moreno Ramos, O.H., Ortiz-Monasterio, I., Sayre, K.D. In: Field Crops Research v. 232, p. 95-105.
Research busts common myths about agricultural labor in Africa, suggests a shift in mechanization policy
New farm-level research into agricultural labor in eastern and southern Africa found that a lack of farm power is costing smallholders in productivity, demonstrating a far higher demand for mechanization than commonly thought.
The study identified African farming households are far more dependent on labor markets than previously assumed, and thus far more inclined to hire mechanization services. The findings call on governments in the region to create an enabling environment to promote appropriate mechanization for small-scale farmers, said lead researcher Frédéric Baudron, systems agronomist with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
“The high number of households already hiring farm power challenges common myths that suggest smallholder farms depends almost entirely on labor as it’s provided by family members. The demand for mechanized farm power is there, the supply isn’t and that is the issue,” he explained.
Unlike studies before it, the research avoided country-level indicators, such as the share of fallow land or population density, to assess the need for mechanized farming operations. Instead, it gathered detailed labor data from households in eight sites dominated by smallholder agriculture across Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
The study demonstrated that households that invest in agricultural power improve food production.
“To increase farm productivity, profitability, and sustainability, African farmers need greater access to affordable farm machinery to optimize processes,” Baudron said.
Small-scale mechanization appropriately sized for small farms — such as technologies based on two-wheel tractors, including direct planters — represents a shift away from conventional mechanization strategies dependent on large machines, leading to land consolidation and the disappearance of otherwise-productive small farms, Baudron said.
“Governments in the region need to create an enabling environment for mechanization supply chains to develop,” he explained. “This includes the creation of mechanization policy instruments, such as subsidies and training, that further respond to smallholder demand.”
Training and supporting hire service providers has shown to improve the equitable access to mechanization, which reduces labor drudgery and promotes sustainable intensification practices.
The research also presented a more nuanced analysis of the interrelations between male and female labor than usually presented in academic studies. It found women provide less labor than men and hired labor and suggests reducing drudgery among women relies upon understanding men’s chores and improving both as a two-way process.
In all sites studied rural women found that the priority for mechanization should be given to crop establishment, which would benefit both men and women. Land preparation and planting are tasks commonly performed by males, but their optimization influences weeding and postharvest tasks, primarily completed by women.
“These interconnections between men’s and women’s tasks have rarely been mentioned before, and should be tapped into for gender-sensitive interventions,” said Baudron.
Five persistent myths related to labor in African smallholder agriculture, challenged
Myth 1: Labor is abundant and cheap; thus, farm power does not limit agricultural productivity
Reality: It is commonly believed farm power does not limit agricultural productivity because there is an abundant amount of cheap labor options in southern and eastern Africa. However, the farm-level study showed a lack of farm power is holding back productivity and illustrated a much higher demand for mechanization than macroeconomic analyses, pointing to a problem of access rather than a lack of demand. It revealed the importance of labor or other sources of farm power in explaining the variability of land productivity. It also found that investments in farm power at the farm level improved land productivity.
Myth 2: Most of the labor is provided by women
Reality: Across the eight sites studied, women were found to provide just 7 to 35% of the labor invested in household farming, far less than the often-claimed percentage of 60 to 80%. Overall, the farm-level study found women tended to provide less labor for farming than men and hired labor. Even when considering female-headed households alone, women were only the main providers of labor in half of the sites — hired labor or children were we the main providers of labor.
The largest share of female labor tended to be invested in activities characterized by high drudgery, weeding and postharvest in particular, although this varied across sites. Weeding was also the main task performed by men in four of the sites studied. In fact, the study revealed that weeding tended to be a shared task between men, women, children, and hired labor, and not as dominated by female labor as commonly thought.
Myth 3: Agricultural tasks are carried out almost entirely by family labor
Reality: The study showed the majority of farming households in the region hire labor to complete agricultural tasks. Farm power hired included human labor, draught animals and, to a much lesser extent, tractor power.
This challenges the common view of Africa being dominated by family farms which, according to FAO, “rely mainly on the labor of family members.” African farming households may be far more dependent on labor markets than commonly assumed, and thus far more inclined to hire mechanization services.
Myth 4: Consolidation, by enabling “efficient” mechanization, would have a positive impact on agricultural productivity
Reality: The study found the maximum land productivity a farm can achieve decreased with increasing farm area in the majority of sites. This supports the so-called “negative farm size–productivity relationship” which has been reported by other studies in eastern and southern Africa.
Mechanization should not be a cause of consolidation — it should rather be driven by economic development. The concept of “appropriate mechanization” embraced by CIMMYT argues that machines should adapt to farm size, and not the opposite. Recent research and development initiatives taking place in the region point to the potential of using small single-axle tractors for agricultural mechanization in areas dominated by small and fragmented fields.
Myth 5: African agriculture is characterized by a wide gender gap
Reality: Research across all eight sites provided little evidence of a consistent gender gap. Land productivity was found not to differ significantly between male-headed households and female-headed households.
The research suggests the limited evidence of any substantial gender gap may stem from the fact that resources are highly inadequate across all sites, limiting large inequalities to manifest. This is not to deny the usefulness of current interventions targeting women-headed households, but rather to highlight the importance of preserving, strengthening, and tapping on social mechanisms in rural communities.
Read the complete study:
‘A farm-level assessment of labor and mechanization in Eastern and Southern Africa’
For more information on appropriate-sized agricultural mechanization in Africa
Chicago’s tortillas are better than ever, thanks to Masienda’s heirloom corn from Oaxaca
In Mexico there are about 3 million subsistence farmers producing heirloom corn.
New study identifies best agronomic practices to reduce fall armyworm damage
The fall armyworm, an invasive insect-pest native to the Americas, has caused significant damage to maize crops in sub-Saharan Africa since its arrival to the region in 2016. An integrated approach, including improved agronomic practices, is necessary in order to fight against the invasive caterpillar. However, little is known about the most effective agronomic practices that could control fall armyworm under typical African smallholder conditions. In addition, more information is needed on the impact of fall armyworm on maize yield in Africa, as previous studies have focused on data trials or farmer questionnaires rather than using data from farmer fields. In a new study published by researchers with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), investigators set out to understand the factors influencing fall armyworm damage and to quantify yield losses due to fall armyworm damage.
The study examined damage in smallholder maize fields in two districts of eastern Zimbabwe. “We estimated the yield losses due to fall armyworm damage at 11.57 percent in the study area. Extrapolated to the whole of Zimbabwe, this would amount to a loss of 200,000 tons of grain, or a value of more than $32 million using the average global price of maize of $163 per ton in 2018,” said Frederic Baudron, cropping systems agronomist at CIMMYT and main author of the study.
Practices such as infrequent weeding or planting on land that had previously been fallow were found to increase fall armyworm damage to maize — most likely because they increased the amount of fall armyworm host plants other than maize. Conversely, practices hypothesized to increase the abundance of natural enemies of fall armyworm — such as minimum and zero tillage or the application of manure and compost — were found to decrease fall armyworm damage. Intercropping with pumpkins was found to increase damage, possibly by offering a shelter to moths or facilitating plant-to-plant migration of the caterpillar. Fall armyworm damage was also higher for some maize varieties over others, pointing to the possibility of selecting for host plant resistance.
“Given the limited coverage of the study in terms of area and season, it would be interesting to replicate it all over the country through the involvement of governmental agricultural departments, so that we get the full picture around the fall armyworm problem at a larger scale,” said Mainassara Zaman-Allah, co-author of the study and abiotic stress phenotyping specialist at CIMMYT.
This study is unique in that it is the first to collect information on agronomic practices that can affect fall armyworm damage using data taken directly from smallholder farmer fields. “Many papers have been written on pest incidence-damage-yield relationships, but with researchers often having control over some of the potential sources of variation,” said Peter Chinwada, TAAT Fall Armyworm Compact Leader at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), another co-author of the study.
“Our study was driven by the desire to determine fall armyworm incidence-damage-yield relationships under typical African smallholder farmer conditions which are characterized by a diversity of cropping systems, planting dates and “pest management practices” that may have been adopted for purposes which have nothing to do with managing pests. Unravelling such relationships therefore requires not only institutional collaboration, but the meeting of minds of scientists from diverse disciplines.”
The results of the study suggest that several practices could be promoted to control fall armyworm in its new home of Africa. “Farmers have already been informed of the results by their extension agents; the NGO GOAL, present in Zimbabwe, shared the findings,” Baudron said. “The next step is to test some of the recommendations suggested in the paper to control fall armyworm such as good weed management, conservation agriculture, use of manure and compost, and stopping pumpkin intercropping. These approaches will need to be refined.”
This work was implemented by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), GOAL, and the University of Zimbabwe. It was made possible by the generous support of Irish Aid, Bakker Brothers and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE). Any opinions, findings, conclusion, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of Irish Aid, Bakker Brothers and MAIZE.
CIMMYT and Clinton Foundation launch partnership to improve access to climate-resilient maize seed in eastern and southern Africa
NEW YORK and TEXCOCO, Mexico — Working together to improve access to and availability of climate-resilient maize varieties in eastern Africa, the Clinton Foundation and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) are launching a partnership that will not only improve access by smallholder farmers to modern maize varieties but also aim to bolster food security in Malawi, Rwanda and Tanzania. The Clinton Foundation is launching this partnership through the Clinton Development Initiative, which works in the region to improve economic opportunity for farmers through better access to markets, technology, and inputs like seeds and fertilizer.
Farmers in eastern and southern Africa face obstacles in agricultural production with little to no access to formal markets. Improvement in yields are often made more difficult as a result of erratic weather patterns from climate change and limited access to improved seed varieties and quality inputs. Farmers also lack access to information about prices and market opportunities for their crops, making it harder for them to produce and sell.
“Farmers in eastern and southern Africa face increasing threats to their livelihoods, including drought, insect-pests, and diseases. This partnership will improve farmers’ access to modern crop varieties, the quality of their crops, opportunities to market the produce, and food security for their families,” explained Ariana Constant, Director of the Clinton Development Initiative. “We are working together to provide farmers with heat- and drought-tolerant maize seeds to grow stronger, healthier crops and to help reduce the negative impacts of climate shocks.”
Collaboration between the Clinton Foundation and CIMMYT is a natural fit. CIMMYT’s history of creating improved planting materials combined with the Clinton Foundation’s extensive network of trained farmers will support increases in both crop yield and quality. The partnership will also boost production and offset the negative impact of climate-induced stresses. The seed varieties are all non-GMO, in keeping with regulations across Malawi, Rwanda, and Tanzania.
“We are thrilled to join the Clinton Foundation in supporting smallholder farmers in eastern Africa. Our commitment is to effectively deploy improved maize varieties, including drought- and heat-tolerant and disease-resistant varieties available to the Clinton Foundation’s network of farmers,” said Prasanna Boddupalli, director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize. “Beyond providing improved maize seeds, we will also collaboratively undertake varietal trials in farmers’ fields, track genetic gains in farmers’ fields over time, and share the findings with the broader agricultural community in eastern and southern Africa”, Prasanna said.
The Clinton Foundation has a strong track record of generating steady returns for farmers in the region. In Tanzania, farmers working with the Clinton Development Initiative for every $1 spent on operations has generated $3.80 in additional income for smallholder farmers in Rwanda.
“Today, thanks to our partnership with CIMMYT, we hope to increase yields and quality of maize crop production for our farmers even further. This means helping farmers to take a sustainable, scalable and transformative approach to production,” said Ariana Constant.
To learn more about the Clinton Development Initiative, please visit https://www.clintonfoundation.org/our-work/clinton-development-initiative. For more information about CIMMYT, please visit https://staging.cimmyt.org/.
About CIMMYT
CIMMYT – the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center – is the global leader in publicly-funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. Headquartered near Mexico City, CIMMYT works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, thus improving global food security and reducing poverty.
CIMMYT is a member of the CGIAR System and leads the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat, and the Excellence in Breeding Platform. The Center receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies.
About the Clinton Development Initiative
At the inaugural meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in 2005, President Clinton made a commitment to improve economic growth in Africa. From this commitment, President Clinton began the Clinton Development Initiative (CDI), to help support smallholder farmers and families in Africa to meet their own food needs and improve their livelihoods.
When families are empowered to secure their own food and support themselves financially, communities become more resilient – economies grow, jobs are created, and together, we build a strong foundation for the future.
Media contacts:
CIMMYT: Genevieve Renard, Head of Communications. g.renard@cgiar.org
Clinton Development Initiative: press@clintonfoundation.org
To manage El Nino-related crop distress in eastern and southern Africa, invest in drought-tolerant seeds and better soil and water care
NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) — To mitigate the impact of the current drought affecting millions of farmers living in Kenya and other areas of eastern and southern Africa, agriculture experts from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) call for intensively scaling up climate-resilient seeds and climate-smart innovations, including drought-tolerant seeds and soil and water conservation practices.
The U.S. National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center has just warned that abnormally dry conditions are affecting Kenya and other areas of eastern and southern Africa. This year’s El Niño, the second in a period of three years, has led to large pockets of drought across eastern and southern Africa, whose economies still rely heavily on rainfed smallholder farming. These recurrent climate shocks impede growth prospects in the region, as the World Bank recently announced.
In Kenya, farmers are eager to plant their maize seeds for the next cropping season. However, mid-April is already here, and farmers are still waiting for the long rains, which usually arrive by mid-March. The very late onset of the rainy season could lead to a poor cropping season and significantly reduced maize yields for farmers.
To avoid this, Stephen Mugo, CIMMYT’s regional representative for Africa, recommends that farmers shift to planting stress-resilient varieties, like early maturing maize varieties that just need 90 to 95 days to mature, instead of over four months for late maturing varieties. Seeds of such early maturing varieties are available from seed companies and agrodealers operating in maize growing areas.
“If more small farmers in Africa’s drought-prone regions grow drought-tolerant varieties of maize and other staple crops, the farming communities will be better prepared for prolonged dry spells and inadequate rainfall,” said Mugo.
Crop diversification and more sustainable soil and water conservation practices are also recommended to improve soil fertility and structure and avoid soil compaction. When the rains finally come, run-off will be less, and soils will have more capacity to retain moisture.
“Our research shows that conservation agriculture, combined with a package of good agronomic practices, offers several benefits that contribute to yield increases of up to 38 percent,” Mugo said.
To ensure large-scale adoption of sustainable and climate-resilient technologies and practices, farmers should have access to drought-tolerant seeds, as well as information and incentives to shift to climate-smart agricultural practices.
CIMMYT is engaged in many ways to help facilitate this agricultural transformation. The institute works with the African seed sector and national partners to develop and deploy stress resilient maize and wheat varieties through initiatives like Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa and the Wheat rust resistant seed scaling in Ethiopia.
Because late planting may expose maize crops to stronger attacks of pests like the fall armyworm, the research-for-development efforts initiated by the FAW R4D consortium against this invasive pest should be sustained.
More information about CIMMYT’s research on drought-tolerant seed and conservation agriculture can be found on the website of the Sustainable Intensification of Maize Legumes Systems in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project.
For more information or for media interviews, please contact
Jerome Bossuet, Communications Officer, CIMMYT.
J.Bossuet@cgiar.org
ABOUT CIMMYT
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is the global leader in publicly funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. Headquartered near Mexico City, CIMMYT works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, thus improving global food security and reducing poverty. CIMMYT is a member of CGIAR and leads the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat, and the Excellence in Breeding Platform. The center receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies.
What’s new in southern Africa?
On March 14, 2019, over 200 of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center’s (CIMMYT) partners in southern Africa, including national research organisations, private seed companies and funders, attended the annual partners field day in Harare, Zimbabwe.
“For the last 34 years, CIMMYT’s regional office has expanded its research work, from maize breeding to sustainable cropping practices and recently appropriate mechanization and post-harvest,’’ said Cames Mguni, Director of Zimbabwe’s Department of Research and Specialist Services. “The development of drought and heat tolerant maize varieties helps farmers get better yields and cope better during drought years such as the current 2018/19 season.”
Elijah Nyabadza, Dean of the University of Zimbabwe’s Faculty of Agriculture, highlighted the strong collaboration between the University and CIMMYT in conducting joint research and building cutting-edge skills of the next generation of agricultural scientists and practitioners in the region.
Welthungerhilfe country director Regina Feindt said the partner field day was ‘’a very valuable experience and a great opportunity to gain technical know-how and exchange with colleagues across the region.’’
CIMMYT showcases research impact
At the event, CIMMYT country representative for Zimbabwe Cosmos Magorokosho walked partners through breeding lines that include special lines testing for resistance to diseases such as fall armyworm, maize streak virus and weevil. Maize breeder Amsal Tarekegne explained how, in product development, various inbred lines are combined to create new hybrids. These new hybrids, added seed systems specialist Peter Setimela, are made available to smallholder farmers for performance testing for stress tolerance and nutritional traits under different environments before being released to seed companies for multiplication.
Two Zimbabwean seed companies present at the field day highlighted the benefits of collaboration with CIMMYT. Chrispen Nyamuda, an agronomist from Zadzamatura seed company, explained that many varieties popular with farmers, which are heat-tolerant and resistant to diseases like maize streak virus and grey leaf spot disease, were developed thanks to their collaboration with CIMMYT. Another partner from Mukushi Seeds described the working partnership with CIMMYT as mutually beneficial. “We exchange lines, plant in different environments and share the results,” he explained. “We are also tapping germplasm from the world through CIMMYT’s global reach.”
Mainassara Zaman-Allah and Jill Cairns, CIMMYT’s high throughput phenotyping experts, elaborated on how cost-effective remote sensing technologies significantly reduce costs for screening for specific traits and assessing the potential extent of damage caused by pests such as fall armyworm.
Over the last couple of years, CIMMYT has intensified maize breeding efforts aimed at improving the nutritional value of maize, particularly higher content in provitamin A and better quality protein. Maize breeder Thokozile Ndhlela explained that more than 15 new hybrids with higher levels of provitamin A have been released in southern Africa, including five in Zimbabwe.
Agronomists Christian Thierfelder and Isaiah Nyagumbo shared some conservation agriculture techniques adopted by smallholder farmers. Farmers can realize better yields and improve their climate resilience by combining conservation agriculture principles such as minimum soil disturbance, crop rotation and soil cover, with use of stress tolerant maize varieties, appropriate mechanization and other complementary practices. Frederic Baudron, who leads the Farm Mechanization and Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification (FACASI) initiative, explained how small mechanization like two-wheel planters could address labour shortages, reduce drudgery and generate opportunities for rural youth. Significant drudgery reductions have already been observed in wheat planting in Rwanda, and in post-harvest operations like shelling and threshing in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe.
The International Maize Improvement Consortium one year on
Following the annual partners field day, members of the International Maize Improvement Consortium (IMIC) held a field day to select varieties from the IMIC Southern Africa demo plot, which carries a wider selection of materials. Launched in May 2018, IMIC is a public-private partnership initiative established as part of CIMMYT’s mission to increase seed breeding and production innovations.
Participating IMIC members came from seed companies based in Angola, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. At the field day, they were advised by research associate Obert Randi on the layout of the demonstrations for materials under development for different traits, resilience to fall armyworm and maize streak virus, materials improved for vitamin A and quality protein and stress tolerant lines.
After going through the selections, participating IMIC members proceeded to the Quarantine Facility in Mazoe, where they explored around 2,300 double haploid lines undergoing screening maize lethal necrosis (MLN) as well as multiplication for distribution to non-MLN prevalent countries.
The final part of the field day provided space for the members to share research learnings and input on how to move the consortium forward. The field day concluded with an inaugural meeting of the steering committee chaired by CIMMYT regional representative for Africa Stephen Mugo, where participants discussed a number of issues including membership, procedures for conducting field days, training and research prioritization.
Both field days offered an opportunity to highlight the extended impact of CIMMYT’s research in southern Africa through strong partnerships and commitment to research on maize breeding, sustainable farming practices, mechanization and socio-economic impacts of all programming.
Breaking Ground: Tawanda Mashonganyika unites crop breeders and market experts for more impactful varieties
The low rate at which farmers adopt improved varieties is one of the biggest obstacles to overcoming food insecurity. The average maize variety grown by farmers in sub-Saharan Africa is 15 years old, even though maize breeders have been releasing more than 50 new varieties every year.
When it comes to climate change, for example, thanks to a plentiful arsenal of genetic diversity crop breeders are developing varieties adapted to increased heat and drought, but farmers continue to grow crops developed for the climate of yesterday.
One part of the answer is that it is not enough merely to create a variety resistant to heat, drought or flooding; complex dynamics are at play in crop markets and in farmers’ fields that must be reflected in the design of new varieties.
This where product manager Tawanda Mashonganyika comes in, working for the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB) out of CIMMYT-Kenya, and one of the first to occupy such a role in the CGIAR system.
“This position is supposed to bring in a business kind of thinking in the way products and varieties are developed,” said Mashonganyika, who studied agricultural economics, agribusiness and value chains at the universities of Reading, U.K. and Queensland, Australia, and has professional experience with crops grown in Africa.
“You need to know who you are developing varieties for, who are your customers and clients, and you also need to design products so that they can have success on the market.”
Mashonganyika’s role is to support CGIAR and national agricultural research system (NARS) breeders to design new varieties focused on replacing older products in a specific market, as opposed to only breeding for an agro-ecological zone. Key to this approach is the involvement of experts from other disciplines such as gender, socioeconomics and nutrition, as well as people involved in the value chain itself, such as food processors, seed producers and farmers.
The outcome of this collaboration is a product profile: a written description of a new product with all the traits needed to replace the variety that currently dominates the target market. The profile serves as a common goal for CGIAR and NARS collaboration, and as a tool to communicate with donors. With the breeding program accountable for delivering a pipeline of new products designed for impact, they can ensure that these varieties also deliver traits such as biofortification to farmer’s fields.
Instead of breeding for all the traits that may be desirable in a new variety, what sets the product profile approach apart is that breeding programs can then focus resources on the traits that will have the greatest impact in the market, and therefore the field. This market-focused approach also enables better collaboration between breeders and experts from other disciplines:
“When you bring a cross-functional team together, you really need to give them an understanding of the desired goal of what we want to design and eventually put onto the market,” said Mashonganyika. “We put an emphasis on data-driven decisions, so it is not just a meeting of experts with different opinions; we always try to create a platform to say ‘we need to follow what the market is saying.’”
“[Non-breeding experts] are usually very excited to talk about the data that they have about markets, and the knowledge that they have about how gender or nutrition affects products on the market,” said Mashonganyika. “There are so many women farmers, especially in Africa, so when you begin to incorporate gender, we are increasing the scope of impact.”
Although actors such as seed producers or food processors may have no breeding expertise, Mashonganyika views their input as essential: “They are the ones that are at the mouthpiece of the market, they eventually take up the varieties and they multiply the seed, so they have very good information.”
One example is a collaboration with the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO), Uganda, where representatives from private sector seed companies are being included to help breeders better understand their customers. “They give information about seed multiplication processes, and what makes a variety be considered for multiplication in seed systems.”
EiB has created a standardized tool to create product profiles, and 200 were submitted to the growing database in the first three months of the pilot period alone, including profiles submitted by 10 national agricultural research programs in Africa and Asia.
In addition to promoting the use of product profiles, a product manager is also involved ensuring communication and accountability throughout the development of new products.
“With product profiles we say a breeder should be accountable for delivering each product in a certain timeframe,” said Tawanda. “We always emphasize that a breeding program should have an annual product review process, because markets are dynamic, they are bound to change. This is a good habit to ensure that your products remain relevant and designed for impact.”
Although Mashonganyika is one of the first CGIAR product managers, a desire to see greater impact in the field is turning others in the same direction.
“I hope that in the near future we will see other CGIAR centers developing similar positions,” said Mashonganyika.