Location: Ethiopia

For more information, contact CIMMYT’s Ethiopia office.

W4A Day Four: A momentus day for wheat in Africa

Written by on October 11, 2012. Posted in Features.

Day-3-Field-trip-Kulumsa-Ethiopia-111 It was another exhausting, but productive day at the Wheat for Food Security in Africa conference at Addis Ababa, culminating in a wonderful evening of traditional dancing and the Injera cuisine so typical of Ethiopia. In case you missed any of our live tweeting during the day (#W4A), here is a brief roundup of the main events. It would be impossible to describe everything that happened in one short post, but this was a day likely to produce impacts in the months to come.

After an official welcome by Tekaligne Mamo, State Minister of Agriculture and Advisor to the Federal Minister of Agriculture, Ethiopia, Bekele Shiferaw started proceedings by describing the main findings from a recently released paper entitled “The Potential for Wheat Production in Sub-Saharan Africa: Analysis of Biophysical Suitability and Economic Profitability”. Co-authored by CIMMYT and IFPRI, this report concludes that there is significant potential for profitable, competitive wheat production in Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania, and Uganda. This is something the minister agrees with: “Currently African countries import more than half of their wheat demand from abroad. At the same time, African countries have the proper environment and potential to produce wheat not only for their consumption but for export as well.” This potential increases even more if wheat prices continue to rise, added Shiferaw. However, as Norman Borlaug once said: “You can’t eat potential.”

For this reason, Day Four of the conference brought together not only breeders, socio-economists, union leaders, and center directors, but also Ministers from Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and Burundi. The conference had so far discussed the potential for growing wheat in Africa and the current constraints for doing so. Today gave the opportunity to look in depth at the needs of individual countries, and discuss how we can address these needs and make Africa more self-sufficient in wheat production, and thus more food secure.

David Nyameino, CEO of the Cereal Growers Association of Kenya, took to the floor with an impassioned speech outlining the key strategies we need to adopt if we are to make wheat a viable option for smallholder farmers. According to Nyameino, we need to develop wheat value chains into distinct geographic areas/hubs with the greatest profitability. In those areas, governments must provide farmers with affordable credit and inputs, information, know-how, mechanization, organization, and marketing, all in a comprehensive manner. Hubs must also be willing to include any smallholders who want to enter into profitable wheat production. According to Thomas Lumpkin, CIMMYT Director General, if we are to increase wheat production in Africa, we will have to involve a new type of farmer: a farmer that until now knew nothing about growing wheat.

Value chains and partnerships formed a key part of today’s discussions. “If you want to go far, go together,” quoted Nyameino. Ibrahim Adam Ahmed El-Dukheri, Sudan’s Minister of Agriculture, agreed: “We need regional cooperation and mainstreaming of food security strategies.” A participant from Tanzania added: “We need to improve the value chain to tap the genetic and environmental potential we have seen and to get money into the farmers’ pockets.” This issue was raised again in the final session by Joseph M. Made, Minister of Agriculture, Mechanization, and Irrigation Development, Zimbabwe. “We have great strengths in enhanced value chains, including storage and processing,” he said. “We need policies that enhance the value chain, to push the development of wheat. Without this value chain, or policies that support it, there is no wheat industry to talk about other than localized, home production,” added Made.

In the afternoon, panelists from Zambia, Nigeria, Sudan, South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tunisia, and a representative from the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) all agreed that the research priorities for wheat in Africa should focus on developing heat and drought tolerant, disease and pest resistant varieties. They also talked of the need to build capacity, especially in extension, in order to link farmers to markets, both domestically and abroad. In countries such as Sudan, the development of infrastructure is also a vital element, and El-Dukheri highlighted the five-year Agriculture Revival Program currently being implemented in Sudan to address such issues. Mechanization, land consolidation, and public-private partnerships also need to be put on the wheat agenda, according to participants.

It was clear from the discussions that food aid is not the answer. Odette Kayitesi, Minister of Agriculture for Burundi, explained that now her country asks donors to help them produce food themselves, rather than providing it in the form of aid supplies. The representatives from Ethiopia even expressed ambitious hopes that one day soon, they will become an exporter, rather than a nation dependent on imports and food aid.

Concluding the afternoon, Carlos Lopes, Head of the UN Economic Commission of Africa, pointed out that wheat is not currently on the agenda at a continental level. But this could be about to change. With assistance from key researchers from the conference, Ethiopia will present a proposal for developing wheat in Africa, with the full support of Sudan, Burundi, and Zimbabwe, at the African Union Joint Conference of African Ministers of Agriculture and Ministers of Trade during 29 October to 2 November 2012. It’s time to think of Africa as a wheat-grower.

(From left): Dr. Solomon Aseffa (EIAR); Dr. Joseph M. Made (Zimbabwe); Ms. Odette Kayitesi (Burundi); Dr. Thomas A. Lumpkin (CIMMYT); Prof. Tekaligne Mamo (Ethiopia); and Dr. Ibrahim Adam Ahmed El-Dukheri (Sudan)

W4A Day Three: The real world of wheat in Ethiopia

Written by on October 10, 2012. Posted in Features.

Day-3-Field-trip-Kulumsa-Ethiopia-1 After two days in UNECA, a trip to farmers’ fields, seed production sites, and wheat research platforms provided participants with some welcome fresh air and the chance to see the reality of wheat production in Ethiopia. The majority of participants went to observe and ask questions at bread wheat sites in Kulumsa, about 160 km south-west of Addis Ababa, while one busload went to see the durum wheat fields at Debre Zeit.

I went with the Kulumsa group, and our first stop was with farmer Negash Dino. He is currently working with the Ethiopian Institute of Agriculture at Kulumsa, to grow two new, high-yielding bread wheat varieties (Kakaba and Atila). Dino plans to sell the seed he produces to his neighbors in order to help replace the old, poorly-performing varieties with these new lines. This year, Dino estimates that he will harvest 2 t of grain from 1.25 ha. These high yields are partly down to Dino’s improved agronomic pratices; working with the Kulumsa station has taught him the importance of good crop management, and Dino now plants his rainfed crop in rows and uses herbicide to control grass weeds, which are a big problem for the area.

Our next stop was at the Gonde Iteya Basic Seed Farm of the Ethiopian Seed Enterprise (ESE). Here they multiply seed for an incredible 27 crops, with a total of 79 varieties. They grow 13 varieties of bread wheat with the objective that farmers in the area have a constant and ready supply of quality, affordable seed. In addition, ESE is actively working to promote public-private partnerships and also provides training, consultancy, and technical advice in seed production, processing, and marketing. Currently, of the 4.7 million households farming in Ethiopia, just 600,000 use certified seed. Organizations such as ESE are hoping to increase this figure and therefore ensure dissemination of high-yielding varieties to more farmers in the country.

Finally, we visited the Kulumsa research station itself. Here we were welcomed by the Center Director, Solomon, who was delighted to show off his work to such a large group. We visited the Kulumsa wheat seed multiplication scheme, the international nurseries and irrigation ponds, and had presentations on breeding, pathology, and crop management. The interest of the participants was obvious from their large number of questions and attentiveness to all the presenters. They concluded that despite an early start, the trip had been well worth it.

After a long day in the heat of the Ethiopian sun, participants were rewarded with a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony, a beautiful event showcasing the hospitable nature of our hosts here. Tomorrow things will hot up at UNECA as we welcome ministers, ambassadors, donors, and the delegates from earlier in the week to address the policy issues currently constraining wheat production in Africa.

W4A Day Two: Policies, profits, and producing more wheat

Written by on October 9, 2012. Posted in Features.

Conference-day-2 An exhausting, productive day on Day Two of Wheat for Food Security in Africa. Participants arrived bright and early for expert presentations and round-table discussions on abiotic/biotic stresses, market and seed systems, wheat systems and quality, and country outlooks.

After lunch things got really interesting as participants gathered to discuss the key constraints for having profitable, productive wheat systems in Africa, and how we can overcome these. One rapporteur from each group presented the findings and these will be consolidated tomorrow before we present the findings to key policy makers, ministers, and donors on Thursday. Here are some things I learnt today…

We can do more if we act together

And this applies on so many levels. Farmers in Africa generally produce crops from very small parcels of land. This discourages large investments on their behalf, because they will never be able to get large returns from just a small area. Some scientists suggested that farmers should join together and farm larger plots. The same applies for inputs such as fertilizer and seed. One of the reasons these things are so expensive in Africa is due to the high transaction costs; if farmer cooperatives bulk-bought these inputs, they would be able to pass on the savings to the farmers themselves. At a national level, participants called for a strengthening of seed systems, and this includes encouraging the involvement of the private sector. Finally, as Hans Braun, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program, pointed out, whilst we have many regional agricultural organizations in Africa, such as ASARECA, CORAF, and CCARDESA, “they do not know each other”. If international trade, regulations, and wheat policies are to be improved, it is key that all these players work together.

A value chain is only as strong as its weakest link

Breeders work hard to develop new, disease resistant, high-yielding varieties, yet many farmers do not know about them, and the yield difference between experimental stations and farmers’ fields can be huge. This is not to say that farmers are at fault, or in fact that any one part of the value chain is. It comes back to the above point of working together. We need extension workers to inform farmers about new varieties and to disseminate the improved technologies for agronomy and farm mechanization. We need government support to fund these extension workers. We need policymakers to inform government of the needs of the agricultural sector. But as pointed out by Victor Kommerell, Program Manager for the WHEAT CRP, the research heads of national systems are policymakers, too. And it’s not just the politicians we want to influence and get their attention, it’s the millers, the seed companies, the grain traders, in fact, anyone with a vested interest in wheat should be listening to African researchers and learning about the huge market that exists on this continent.

There is a solution for wheat in Africa

It’s simple maths. Increased revenues and decreased production costs equal increased profits and greater incentives for growing wheat in Africa. Aside from the points mentioned above, it’s clear we need more research and knowledge, and for this knowledge to be shared between researchers, governments, extension workers, community leaders, farmers. Timely access to fertilizer is a major problem for Africa, but we could overcome this by increasing capacity in fertilizer production, assisting farmers with credit access, and ensuring that everyone who needs to use fertilizer knows exactly how much to use and when to apply it. Human capacity is also key and countries must invest in their own agricultural researchers and extension workers. And none of these things will be truly successful without effective communication at all levels.

With a whole day of discussions, it’s hard to do little more than scratch the surface in a 600-word blog. Hopefully you have a little insight into our progress in Addis Ababa,
and we’re looking forward to bringing you more updates from the conference on Thursday. Tomorrow you can still follow us as we go to the field – look for our twitter hashtag #W4A and join us as we visit research stations and farmers at Kulumsa and Debre Zeit. You can also read what other people have been saying about the conference; so far, we have had stories published on La Presse, Bloomberg, Reuters, Scientific American, Phys.org, Voice of America, Deutsche Welle, and Times Live.

W4A Day One: Food security, consumer demand, and changing the way Africa sees wheat

Written by on October 8, 2012. Posted in Features.

It’s day one at Wheat for Food Security in Africa, and Cobus Le Roux has just finished outlining the production, constraints, market, and future of wheat in Southern Africa. This morning participants enjoyed keynote speeches from Kwadwo Asenso-Okyere (IFPRI), Nicole Mason (Michigan State University), and Bekele Shiferaw (CIMMYT).

One of the key issues raised was just how much of their precious little foreign expenditure African countries must spend on imports. In 2010, over 12.5 US$ billion was spent to import 32 million tons of wheat to Africa. Many of this morning’s speakers posed the question: “What if that money was spent on wheat research instead? How much money would it take to improve wheat and agronomy so that that import bill is reduced or even eliminated?”

Food security was a buzzword on everyone’s lips this morning. Food aid does not imply food security, merely that people have enough to eat at that moment. But what about next year? What happens then? And what if the countries who supplied food aid this year are unable to do so next year? According to Kwadwo, food security is a right, not a priviledge. And the economics makes sense too; a woman who does not get enough, nutritious food during pregnancy is likely to give birth to an underweight, undernourished baby. If this baby does not get healthy food on a regular basis, particularly in the first two years of childhood, it is more likely to grow up to be an underweight, undernourished adult. This underweight, undernourished adult will not be as strong, not as able to work, more likely to get ill. We need healthy, strong adults if we are to create productive, prosperous countries. Whilst the high food prices in 2007/08 and 2010/11 caused shockwaves around the world, they produced some small benefit in propelling food security to the forefront of the global agenda.

Producing more wheat could help African countries achieve food security. Everyone at the conference is in agreement that demand for wheat in Africa is increasing. Traditionally in Africa, wheat has been the food of the rich; but now that incomes are on the rise, wheat is being eaten also by the traditionally lower- and middle-classes. An increasingly urban population is demanding more processed food, requiring less preparation time; this food is generally wheat-based, such as bread. And whilst the price of wheat is on the rise, the increase has not been as dramatic as for some other staple crops, meaning that it is becoming an ever more attractive option for consumers.

“So,” asked Bekele, “There is obviously a big demand for wheat in Africa – what can we do about the supply?”

And that is the question we are here to answer, starting this afternoon with presentations on the current wheat situation in different parts of Africa and round-table discussions addressing many aspects of wheat production, constraints, and the value chain in Africa. This is not an opportunity for a jolly to Addis Ababa – the participants are here to do a job. We are here to influence and improve the future of wheat in Africa, and that is no small task.

Tomorrow there will be more specific discussions on the things currently constraining African wheat production: abiotic and biotic factors, wheat markets and seed systems, and wheat quality. You can follow all the action on twitter using #W4A, or check back here tomorrow for a full summary.

Participants from Sudan set up their posters before Day One at Wheat for Food Security in Africa

Wheat for Food Security in Africa – The Conference Begins Tomorrow!

Written by on October 7, 2012. Posted in Features.

Here in Addis Ababa, excitement is building as more than 200 participants arrive and register for the conference on Wheat for Food Security in Africa, organized by CIMMYT, the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA), and the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR).

This photo comes from our new Flickr WHEAT collection - you can find it at http://to.ly/fKpy — This photo comes from our new Flickr WHEAT collection – you can find it at http://to.ly/fKpy

Tomorrow the Director Generals of the three organizations will welcome the diverse array of participants – researchers, policymakers, Ministers, journalists, and more – before the Ethiopian Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, H.E. Ato Teferra Derbew, takes to the stage for the official opening address. We will also have the pleasure of welcome remarks from the African Union representative, H.E. Mrs. Tumusiime Rhoda Peace. Then, it will be down to business in the form of keynote speeches and updates on the states of wheat production in North, East, South, and West Africa.

Some of the participants will have an early start tomorrow, as they must get to the conference center to hang their posters. Over 100 African researchers are being sponsored by the conference; they will all have to display a poster or give a presentation, and all participants will receive a book of the abstracts from the sponsored researchers.Now that the rainy season appears to have come to an end, participants will be able to experience Ethiopia at its most green and beautiful when they take a trip to either Debra Zeit or Kulumsa Research Station on day 3. Days four and five will be more policy oriented and discussion based. If you can’t be at the conference itself, we’ll keep you up to date on everything as it happens.

To stay connected, whether you are at the conference or not, follow us on twitter using the #W4A hashtag. There will also be regular updates on the WHEAT Facebook page. And of course, daily summaries on this blog. But why wait until the end of the day? Get involved on Facebook, give us your feedback on twitter, and discuss with your friends, colleagues, and family how we can improve the future of wheat research and production in Africa.

Partners meet in Ethiopia to launch Adoption Pathways

Written by on October 1, 2012. Posted in News.

The first planning and inception meeting of the ‘Identifying socioeconomic constraints to and incentives for faster technology adoption: Pathways to sustainable intensification in Eastern and Southern Africa’ (Adoption Pathways project) took place at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, during 13-15 September 2012. The meeting was attended by over 25 participants from 5 universities and research institutes (Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, and Mozambique), international partner universities (University of Queensland, Australia, and Norwegian University of Life Sciences), International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), CIMMYT, Australian International Food Security Center (AIFSC), Australian Center for International Agriculture Research (ACIAR), and resource persons from US universities.

The Adoption Pathways project is a continuation of a fruitful partnership between ACIAR and African researchers which began under the Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) initiative led by CIMMYT. It is funded by the newly established AIFSC, which is housed in ACIAR and whose mission is to “accelerate demand-driven research, delivery and adoption of innovations to improve food security.”

The project focuses on the socioeconomic, policy, institutional, risk, and agro-climatic constraints and/or incentives that affect farmers’ technology-adoption behavior. Building on the success of SIMLESA, the Adoption Pathways project will systematically collect and analyze household, plot, and village level data from sentinel villages representing maizelegume based farming systems in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, and Mozambique. Data collected from the sentinel villages will help monitor longterm trends and development changes, and fill the knowledge gaps in designing programs and policies that accelerate technology adoption, stimulate productivity growth, and lead to sustainable agricultural intensification pathways. The planned activities will be implemented in close collaboration with the SIMLESA team to ensure that the knowledge and outputs generated by this project will help bridge the gap between agricultural research and adoption of research outputs. Bronnie Anderson-Smith, AIFSC executive officer, and John Dixon, ACIAR senior adviser/research program manager, highlighted the unique opportunity provided by the project to contribute towards three core strategic focal areas of AIFSC: access to food; education, training, and gender research; and building resilient farming systems.

Throughout the meeting, project participants became familiar with methodological innovations in adoption and impact analysis, gender integration in household level data collection, modeling approaches to determine vulnerability and risk management strategies, conducting risk experiments, and developing econometric and economy-wide models to estimate the impact of technology adoption.

During the closing session, Lisa Filipetto, the Australian Ambassador to Ethiopia, emphasized the important role economists play in integrating the elements of marketing, value-chain analysis, and income generation in technology adoption. “Participants should get involved in policy dialogue in their respective countries so that the ‘adoption pathways’ lead to outcomes and impacts,” she said, adding that “this meeting symbolizes the beginning of the start of a pioneering partnership between AIFSC, CIMMYT, and other national and international partners.”

GroupPhoto-for-print-cropped

SIMLESA researchers discuss monitoring and evaluation

Written by on September 20, 2012. Posted in News.

Simlesa-prgram-ME The fourth workshop on monitoring and evaluation (M&E) organized by the Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) initiative took place at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) campus, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, during 27 July – 1 August 2012. Following recommendations from the previous meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, the workshop aimed to update SIMLESA country performance monitoring plan and train M&E focal persons and country objective coordinators in qualitative data collection, participatory design of data collection tools, and data quality management for Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania.

The workshop was opened by Enock Warinda (Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa– ASARECA) and attended by 16 participants, including CIMMYT scientists, Dagne Wegary and Menale Kassie. Participants shared their experiences with data collection under SIMLESA and discussed potential ways to strengthen the data collection system. At the end of the workshop, the country M&E focal persons were tasked to develop M&E concepts for their respective countries to be funded and implemented through ASARECA and CIMMYT. To follow up on these activities, Peter Beine (ASARECA) and Austin Ngindi (CIMMYT-SIMLESA) will visit SIMLESA countries to assist with data quality assessment.

Capacity building in gender mainstreaming for SIMLESA

Written by on August 15, 2012. Posted in News.

The Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) initiative held its third workshop on gender mainstreaming at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) campus, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, during 24-27 July 2012. Following recommendations from the previous meeting in Tanzania, this workshop aimed to compile field-related case studies on gender mainstreaming activities, and to harmonize gender mainstreaming action plans for five SIMLESA countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania. Twenty participants from these five countries attended, and, for the first time, extension officers from SIMLESA sites in each of the five countries also participated. The workshop was opened by Dagne Wegary on behalf of SIMLESA Program Coordinator Mulugetta Mekuria, and facilitated by Forough Olinga, Gender Expert at the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA), Enock Warinda, Monitoring and Evaluation Unit leader at ASARECA, Daisy Namono, Consultant, and Ruth Nankinga, Administrative Assistant at ASARECA. Bekele Shiferaw, CIMMYT Socioeconomics Program Director, and Menale Kassie, Socioeconomist and SIMLESA Objective 1 Coordinator, also contributed encouragement and insight on mainstreaming gender within SIMLESA. The extension officers shared their field experiences which were then used to identify good practices and potential case studies for further development. At the end of the workshop, the participants developed country gender mainstreaming action plans to be funded and implemented, created a format for the case studies, and agreed to submit at least eight case studies to Olinga and Namono for evaluation by 26 August 2012. To follow up, Namono will visit SIMLESA countries to finalize the case studies for publication before the end of the year.

DTMA takes a closer look at gender issues

Written by on July 2, 2012. Posted in News.

Last week, the Drought Tolerant Maize in Africa (DTMA) Project hosted gender consultant Diana Pritchard in Ethiopia and Kenya. In Ethiopia, Diana met with CIMMYT project staff. In Kenya, she attended a field day hosted by One Acre Farm in Kendu Bay in Nyanza Province. She also visited the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) Katumani Station, Dryland Seeds Limited, and four farmer groups in Machakos and Makueni Districts in Kenya’s Eastern Province. Diana has been contracted to give recommendations on what DTMA can do to mainstream a focus on gender through the project activities carried out by CIMMYT and its partners. In making the project gender friendly, she will advise the project on how to ensure its activities and those of partners enhance women’s livelihoods and, in turn, contribute to their empowerment without impacting negatively on them.

While highlighting that the work she was doing was still ongoing, Diana pointed out key strengths of the DTMA project from her assessment. “DTMA and all project personnel recognize the need to do this because it is generally acknowledged that approximately 70 percent of agricultural labor in sub-Saharan countries is provided by women,” says Diana. “Since women also play a central role in the welfare of household members and the community, understanding how drought tolerant technologies affect them is crucial to defining the impact of DTMA on poor farmers. Amongst many of the research counterparts, both public and private, there is recognition of the significance of women in agricultural systems,” she observes.

Diana indicates that there is a qualitative difference between ‘sex differentiated’ data and gender aggregated data. Whereas the former establishes the existence of differences, for example, in variety preference of men and women or different adoption rates, it is important to go beyond this differentiation and to establish why this may be the case. This involves examining the underlying issues of different access that men and women have to resources (cash and assets).

So what exactly is gender analysis? “In carrying out gender analysis, one looks at power relationships within households with regards to men, women, children and the elderly in a bid to identify and explain the reasons why there are different responses to technological adoption and how different technologies may impact on different groups.” In turn, this requires adopting methods which enable researchers to effectively identify the specific challenges and constraints that bar women from greater access to assets and resources and that inhibit them from generating income through farming. Various methods, including focus groups, participatory and action research may all have a role to ensure that research findings accurately reflect women’s realities, their perspectives and interests. In this way, such qualitative methods can complement quantitative data and provide meaningful interpretations of the data which reflect the realities of poor women. This is crucial if DTMA technologies are to effectively reach women and to shape more effective project interventions.

The gender consultant identified different obstacles at different levels. “Women face many obstacles such as cultural constraints which influence their access to resources,” says Diana. “These cultural norms inhibit their more active participation or ability to demand for greater control in decision making and resources,” she elaborates further. Cultural norms may also become institutionalized and can result in women having limited access to financial resources, credit and important inputs which impact on their potential to produce good yields and secure food for rural households.

In her interactions with the various farmer groups which consisted mainly of women farmers, Diana learned about what they gained from organizing themselves in order to overcome the challenges they all face. They said that working as a group provided them an opportunity to gain more agricultural knowledge from their peers and extension workers. It also allowed them to pool together their limited labor resources to till the land, plant, weed, harvest and build terraces. “Women are organizing across the continent to try and overcome their limitations,” says Diana. She also noted that CIMMYT, through the DTMA project and its partners, both in public institutions and private enterprises are engaging this segment of the farming population in different ways.

Two decades since her last visit to Kenya, Diana was struck at the modified landscape of the country, reflecting the increase in the country’s booming population and the intensification of agriculture and particularly the widespread use of terracing: agricultural practices adopted to retain soil and conserve moisture.

Once the assignment is complete, Diana will share a complete report with the DTMA project staff.

Tsedeke Abate joins CIMMYT as DTMA Project Leader

Written by on May 17, 2012. Posted in News.

Dr-Tsedeke-Abates-Photo A citizen of Ethiopia, Tsedeke Abate joined CIMMYT Global Maize Program on 08 May 2012, and has taken over responsibilities from Wilfred Mwangi as the project leader of the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project. Abate will be based in Nairobi, Kenya. He obtained his BS and MS degrees in agriculture from the University of Florida, USA, and his PhD in biological sciences from Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada.

Abate has a wide range of productive and successful experience in leadership and management of agricultural research and development. As project coordinator, during 2008-12 he led the Tropical Legumes II project jointly implemented by ICRISAT, CIAT and IITA in Africa and South Asia. Prior to this Abate was the director general of the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR). He is also well known for his passion for putting agricultural knowledge into practical use—scaling-up and scaling-out improved technologies to impact the lives and livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

Africa recruits research partners to secure its food

Written by on May 15, 2012. Posted in Features.

ACIAR’s Dr. John Dixon and Dr. Daniel Rodriguez of the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, with farmers from Melkassa, Ethiopia

A maize – legume farm in Tanzania

Government extension officer Frank Swai, Tanzania

Farmer and single mother of four Felista Mateo, Tanzania

CIMMYT’s Dr. Fred Kanampiu, Tanzania

By Judie-Lynn Rabar and
Dr. Gio Braidotti

East African farmers are spearheading a research drive to intensify crop production of their most important staple foods. The farmers’ experiments with conservation agriculture and variety selection are part of a broader, 5-country push to stave off a looming food and soil-health crisis.

Kilima Tembo is a secondary school in the Karatu district in Tanzania’s rural highlands. Here, near the Ngorongoro Crater and Tarangira National Park, agriculture is king and food security rests squarely on grains grown in the region’s maize–legume intercropping system.

So important is farming to the community that the school has an agriculture teacher and the school head, Ms Odilia Basso, has allowed the Selian Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) to use school grounds to run field trials as part of a 5-country initiative to overhaul the maize and legumes supply chain—from farm to market.

That means breaking with a long-standing cycle of lifting production simply by bringing more land under the plough. The ecological consequences of that approach are catching up with farmers and their environment, but agricultural science is providing more sustainable alternatives to improve food security.

The research-based strategy is called SIMLESA—sustainable intensification of maize–legume cropping systems for food security in eastern and southern Africa. Launched in March 2010, the project is supported by the Australian Government through ACIAR.

Ambitious aims

A major objective is to introduce conservation agriculture techniques and more resilient varieties to increase the productivity and resilience of this vital cropping system. SIMLESA is aiming not only to increase yields by 30% from the 2009 average but also to reduce, by the same factor, risk from yield variability between seasons.

The Kilima Tembo Secondary School will help achieve these goals. The school is hosting the so-called ‘Mother Trial’—a long-term SARI field trial of conservation agriculture. This farming practice involves conserving ground cover between harvests to preserve soil moisture and, over a number of years, radically improve soil health and fertility.

Unlike 11 other farmer-led field sites established by SARI (the so-called ‘Baby Trials’), the Mother Trial is managed directly by the institute’s scientists, landing the school’s students with front-row seats on research and development activities designed to sustain a farming revolution.

Mr. Bashir Makoko, an agronomist working on the SIMLESA project, says students have the opportunity to learn about the project and its significance to the community at an open day with scientists and extension workers from SARI.

The socioeconomist running the trial, Mr. Frank Mbando, is encouraging student participation. He has arranged for data to be collected in ways that allow students to interact with technical staff. “Direct involvement in the project will equip the students with the information they need as potential farmers,” he says.

Household and regional impacts

Supporting these activities are partnerships that link farmers with a suite of national resources—extension officers, research centres and agricultural ministries—and international research centres.

Coordinating these linkages is Dr. Mulugetta Mekuria, from the South African regional office of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). Also involved is the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).

Dr. Mekuria says SIMLESA was designed to have impacts at both the household and regional level.

“The aim is to ensure food security through agricultural research, stronger economic institutions, partnerships, and capacity building,” he says. “We want to increase food security and incomes while driving economic development through improved productivity from more resilient and sustainable maize-based farming systems.”

To implement the program, Dr. Mekuria is using the ‘3-I Approach’, a research for development (R4D) strategy designed to enhance smallholder prosperity based on the principles of integration, innovation, and impact. “SIMLESA activities will focus on integrated cropping systems, the use of innovation platforms to test and promote promising practices, and ensuring positive and measurable impacts on food security, sustainability and farm household incomes.”

ACIAR is funding SIMLESA with $20 million in financial support. The centre has enlisted Australian expertise through Dr. Daniel Rodriguez, of the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, and Professor John Howieson from the Institute for Crop and Plant Sciences at Murdoch University in Perth.

Positive experience

Ms. Felista Mateo, a 37-year-old farmer from Kilima Tembo village is already benefitting from participating in SIMLESA.

A single mother of four, Ms. Mateo supports her family with produce from her land, mainly maize and pigeon pea. Any surpluses, though small, are stored in granaries and either used domestically or sold to middlemen.

Following advice from government extension officer Mr. Frank Swai, she achieved yield gains that her neighbours are now attempting to duplicate. As her harvest increases, she plans to build a larger granary to store her surplus and sell more grain as a cash crop.

Traditionally, farmers have had no way of tracking the market and the middlemen who buy their produce have exercised control over prices. However, Ms. Mateo owns a mobile phone and since the inception of SIMLESA and its support network, she can now call an extension officer and check market prices. The result is greater bargaining power for the villagers when the middlemen come calling.

Averting food insecurity

More than 200 million people living in extreme poverty in the partner countries stand to benefit from SIMLESA.

Currently, the region is barely self-sufficient in grain, importing 10% of its needs—one quarter in the form of emergency food aid.
Maize is the main staple and legumes —primarily groundnut, pigeon pea and chickpea— are an important source of protein. Instead of a more prosperous future, however, the region is facing growth in demand for maize and legumes in the next 10 years. It is that trend towards food insecurity that SIMLESA is attempting to avert.

But it is not just on-farm practices that are targeted for innovation. Urban grain prices have remained stubbornly high following the global food crisis of 2007–08. But higher prices for consumers have not translated into higher prices for farmers. This has weakened incentives for farmers to increase food crop production, a state of affairs that SIMLESA is attempting to change.

CIMMYT’s Dr. Fred Kanampiu says that the SIMLESA project is aiming to achieve a ‘whole-chain’ impact. “Despite the multiple efforts underway with the researchers, the final focus should not be lost,” he says. “It is the farmer who is to be the end beneficiary of the research. The farmers’ lives should be improved, their pockets well-lined and their families well catered for.”

Of all the crops produced by farmers such as Ms. Mateo, it is pigeon pea that has an important role to play as a cash crop. Farmers are fond of this legume because it yields two harvests a year and there is a good export market to India. Pigeon pea retails up to TZS150,000 (about US$100) per 100 kilogram bag. On average, one acre (0.405 hectares) of land yields 300–400 kg of pigeon pea. Typically, 95% of the crop is sold.

In Karatu district some 15% of farmers live on less than a dollar a day. Mr. Makoko says the major obstacles to lifting their profitability are high inputs costs, low produce prices, lack of markets, and prolonged drought. By introducing pigeon pea or similar crops, and integrating the ‘whole-chain’ approach, these obstacles can be reduced or overcome.

Socioeconomist Frank Mbando, Tanzania.

Senior agronomist Tuaeli Mmbaga, Tanzania.

The way forward will include training farmers to provide them with further education on how to manage their land.”

–Tuaeli Mmbaga

Better varieties

While the main research thrust is on conservation agriculture, CIMMY T and ICRISAT are participating in accelerated breeding and performance trials that aim to introduce farmers to maize and legume varieties that yield well in good years and are resilient enough in the bad seasons to help reduce farmers’ risks.

Mr. Mbando is tracking impacts associated with the new varieties and says the farmers’ response to the studies has been positive.

“They suggested that breeders take into account farmers’ criteria when making selections, so a participatory approach will be used to evaluate varieties,” he says. “So far, farmers have indicated early maturity, pest and disease tolerance, high yields and marketability as the preferred traits. Variety registration and production will then also be stepped up to make the seed available in sufficient quantities.”

Partnership approach

Mbulu district, located about 50 kilometres from Karatu, is the next community targeted for SIMLESA activities in Tanzania, to start after the current crop has been harvested. At the SIMLESA inception meeting, farmers agreed to leave post-harvest residue on the ground in preparation for the trials. Field activities in the Eastern Zone districts of Gairo and Mvomero are expected to begin in the next growing season.

Ms. Tuaeli Mmbaga, the senior agronomist on this project, says that with support from extension officers, farmers will assess the technology both pre-harvest and post-harvest.

“The way forward will include training farmers to provide them with further education on how to manage their land,” she says. “This will include an Innovation Learning Platform in partnership with farm produce stockists, community leaders, and other stakeholders to ensure that more people become involved with the project.”

Crop modeling scientist Dr. Daniel Rodriguez, who leads the Queensland component of ACIAR’s SIMLESA program, is convinced that research to reduce food shortages in eastern and southern Africa could have many benefits for farmers, including in his native Queensland.

“Our scientists will be working to improve the resilience and profitability of African farms, providing access to better seeds and fertilisers to raise the productivity of local maize–legume farming systems,” Dr. Rodriguez says. “Together we may be able to help solve one of the greatest challenges for the developed world—eliminating hunger and poverty in Africa—while at the same time boosting legume production here in Australia.”

Building agricultural research capacity

ACIAR’s Dr. John Dixon says the emphasis of Australia’s direct involvement is on building capacity within the African agricultural research system.

“Conservation agriculture amounts to a substantial shift in farming practices for the region,” Dr. Dixon says. “But it stands to provide so many advantages—not just greater water-use efficiency and soil health but also opportunities to break disease cycles and improve livestock nutrition.”

These are long-term efforts that need to be adapted to many agro-climatically diverse locations, Dr. Dixon says. “So it is vital that the African agricultural research system is built up so that it can take lead responsibility for implementing innovation into the future.”

Maize without borders: Reforming maize seed sector policies to meet farmers’ needs in Africa

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in Features.

CIMMYT E-News, vol 5 no. 10, October 2008

Senior policy makers from sub-Saharan Africa have recently made recommendations for policy actions to reform operations in the maize seed sector. At stake is better access for millions of small-scale farmers to affordable, quality seed of maize, the region’s food staple. CIMMYT is closely involved.

oct01 In the 2006-07 cropping season, 82 registered maize seed companies produced the bulk of just over 100,000 tons of improved maize seed that were marketed in the major maize producing countries of eastern and southern Africa (excluding South Africa) — enough to sow 35% of the maize land in those countries.

A recent CIMMYT study found that restrictive national policies, lack of credit opportunities, inadequate seed production capacities, insufficient numbers of recently released public sector varieties, and challenging marketing situations were the main reasons why maize seed sector growth is slow in many African countries. Worse, this situation contributes significantly to Africa’s poor food security and farm incomes.

“The good news is that we have today four times more seed companies than ten years ago and they have increased seed provision from 26% to 35% of the total planted maize area,” says CIMMYT socioeconomist Augustine Langyintuo. “Yet there is still a significant, unmet demand for seed, and this underscores the need for new policies that support efficient seed production, processing, and marketing.”

In 2007 Langyintuo led the above-mentioned study to characterize seed providers and bottlenecks to seed supplies in eastern and southern Africa. A total of 117 representatives from seed companies, national research programs, and CBOs/NGOs participated, and information was gathered on the seed sectors in Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

In July 2008, more than 60 senior policy makers from agriculture ministries, private seed companies, seed trade associations, and regional trade blocs from 13 sub-Saharan African countries met in Nairobi, Kenya and recommended ways to improve farmers’ access to seed of improved drought tolerant maize varieties through specific policy actions to enhance the production, release, and marketing of these varieties. They agreed with the findings of the 2007 seed sector study.

Understanding the hurdles

The main findings were that investment capital requirements and a shortage of qualified staff hinder the growth of small, local seed companies that have emerged over the past decade, according to Langyintuo. “The costs of setting up and running an office, recruiting and retaining qualified personnel, and procuring and operating production, processing, and storage facilities are beyond what many local businesses can afford, and access to operational credit is limited or nil,” he says.

oct02

Up to 60% of a seed company’s operational budget goes into seed production. Seed companies, therefore, need affordable credit over the mid-to-long term to produce enough seed to meet farmers’ needs. Marketing seed is also costly. “Most companies rely on third-party agents such as agro-dealers, large retail stores, NGOs, or the government to retail most of their seed,” says Langyintuo. “The majority of the agro-dealers lack funds to purchase seed, and so must take it on consignment, forcing companies to retrieve unsold seed at cost. The dealers are normally not knowledgeable enough about the seed they sell to promote it effectively, and some of them have also been known to adulterate seed with mere grain.”

Other hurdles identified include cumbersome varietal release, registration, and seed certification regulations, as well as a weak producer base, slow access to the best germplasm, uncompetitive prices in local grain markets, low adoption rates of improved varieties, restrictions on cross-border trade in seed, and poor infrastructure (such as bad roads and inadequate storage facilities).

Policy actions needed

To get farmers the seed they want will involve a range of players in the maize seed sector and calls for specific policy actions. Participants in the July 2008 meeting identified ways in which governments and international centers like CIMMYT and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) can assist and support current seed companies to improve their seed outputs and profits.

“The government is supporting the maize seed sector through initiatives such as increasing investments in agricultural research and extension, training of agro-dealers, and developing the National Seed Industry Policy,” confirms Kenya’s Assistant Minister of Agriculture, Japheth Mbiuki.

“Seed companies would benefit from access to a wider range of improved maize varieties, good seed production sites, affordable inputs, and training in effective business practices,” adds Langyintuo. CIMMYT normally distributes its experimental varieties freely to everyone, but granting companies some degree of exclusivity in their use would facilitate branding and promote sales. This would have to be tailored to specific country and company contexts, according to Langyintuo.

Maize seed without borders

No country is an island, and with increasing regional integration of economies around the world, it makes sense that the region should move as one in developing its maize seed sector. Regional trade blocs such as the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) are key. “Specific actions and commitments by national governments include dedicating increased funds (at least 10% of their national budgets) for agricultural development and harmonization of regional seed regulations,” says Ambassador Nagla El-Hussainy, COMESA Assistant Secretary General. “This will improve rates of variety release, lower costs in dealing with regulatory authorities, increase trade in seed of improved varieties and, ultimately, adoption by farmers.” In East Africa, for instance, the national seed policies of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania are at various stages of development and are set to be harmonized soon.

“Effective trade and risk management strategies that buffer seed supply within countries are needed to stabilize and increase maize production in the region,” says Marianne Bänziger, CIMMYT Global Maize Program Director. “These will mitigate the impact of drought and national production fluctuations, which are some of the harsh realities that farmers and consumers face.”

“Where applicable, carrying out the distinctness, uniformity and stability (DUS) tests alongside national performance trials (NPT) could speed up varietal releases,” adds Langyintuo. “Farmers’ awareness of the usefulness and availability of new varieties can be raised through improved extension message delivery, widespread demonstrations, and better retail networks.”

According to Richard Amoussou, an Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture in Benin: “The links between (community-based) seed producers and seed companies should be strengthened through contracts. This will ensure that quality seed is produced and sold to seed companies, who must finally distribute the seed to the farmers, thus improving their access.”

“Streamlining the seed sector will directly benefit the productivity and incomes of small-scale farmers and result in more and more affordable food for consumers – significant in the current global food crisis,” concludes Bänziger. She says this is crucial, given the twin challenges of the global food price crisis and more frequent droughts due to climate change.

For more information: Augustine Langyintuo, socioeconomist (a.langyintuo@cgiar.org)

Moving uphill: Maize’s growing role in Ethiopia

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in Features.

CIMMYT E-News, vol 6 no. 1, January 2009

Fueled by high-yielding varieties and national initiatives to promote the crop in highland areas, maize’s popularity is mounting rapidly in Ethiopia. Because farmers can get more food and income with the new varieties, they are calling out for seed. Suppliers—both private and government supported—are clamoring to meet the demand

“Farmers have expressed strong feelings for maize,” says a translator. A group of villagers at Sororo, Ejere District, Oromia, stand in the intense, mid-morning glare of highland Ethiopia and speak to visitors about their experiences with the improved maize varieties they had received from Demissew Abakemal, maize breeder with the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR). “It was a very dry year, and your maize is performing well,” the farmers say. “We have a surplus for food and even some for taking to the market—something we’d not seen in all our lives.” They have been harvesting and piling sheaves of wheat from the bottom of the hill, but take the visitors to maize fields up near their dwellings, and proudly show the large ears of the hybrid Arganne and a nearly-as-productive open-pollinated variety (OPV), Hora.

Resistant wheats and Ethiopian farmers battle deadly fungus

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in Features.

When a devastating stripe rust epidemic hit Ethiopia last year, newly-released wheat varieties derived from international partnerships proved resistant to the disease, and are now being multiplied for seed.

Wheat farmers and breeders are embroiled in a constant arms race against the rust diseases, as new rust races evolve to conquer previously resistant varieties. Ethiopia’s wheat crop became the latest casualty when a severe stripe rust epidemic struck in 2010. “The dominant wheat varieties were hit by this disease, and in some of the cases where fungicide application was not done there was extremely high yield loss,” says Firdissa Eticha, national wheat research program coordinator with the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR). “This is a threat for the future because there is climate change—which has already been experienced in Ethiopia—and the varieties which we have at hand were totally hit by this stripe rust.”

Ethiopia is not alone; stripe rust has become a serious problem across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, with epidemics in 2009 and 2010 which many countries have struggled to control. What’s new is the evolution of stripe rust races that are able to overcome Yr27, a major rust resistance gene that many important wheat varieties rely on. Although recent weather conditions have allowed the new rust races to thrive, they first began to emerge more than a decade ago, and CIMMYT’s wheat program, always looking forward to the next threat, began selection for resistance to Yr27-virulent races in 1998.

“CIMMYT has a number of wheat lines that have shown good-to-excellent resistance to stripe rust without relying on Yr27, in screening in Mexico, Ecuador, and Kenya,” says Ravi Singh, CIMMYT distinguished scientist and rust expert who leads the breeding effort in Mexico. Many of these are also resistant to the stem rust race Ug99 and have 10-15% higher yields than currently-grown varieties, according to Singh. The current step is to work with national programs to identify and promote the most useful of the resistant materials for their environments—a process that was underway in Ethiopia when the epidemic struck.

Eticha is leading his country’s fight against stripe rust. Reflecting on the disease, he says: “For me it is as important as stem rust. I find it like a wildfire when there is a susceptible variety. You see very beautiful fields actually, yellow like a canola field in flower. But for farmers it is a very sad sight. Stripe rust can cause up to 100% yield loss.” There is no official figure yet on the overall loss to Ethiopia’s wheat harvest for 2010, but it is expected to be more than 20%.

Stripe rust symptoms in the field in Ethiopia. | Photo: Firdissa Eticha

The other common name for stripe rust is yellow rust. Severely-infected plants look bright yellow, due to a photosynthesis-blocking coating of spores of the fungus Puccinia striiformis, which causes the disease. These spores are yellow to orange-yellow in color, and form pustules. These usually appear as narrow stripes along the leaves, and can cover the leaves in susceptible varieties, as well as affecting the leaf sheaths and the spikes. The disease lowers both yield and grain quality, causing stunted and weakened plants, fewer spikes, fewer grains per spike, and shriveled grains with reduced weight.

Epidemic flourishes with damp weather

Normally, Ethiopia has two distinct rainy seasons, one short and one main, allowing for two wheat cropping cycles per year. However, 2010 saw persistent gentle rains throughout the year, with prolonged dews and cool temperatures—perfect weather for stripe rust. Most wheat varieties planted in Ethiopia were susceptible, including the two most popular, Kubsa and Galema, so damage was severe. Under normal conditions, the disease only attacks high-altitude wheat in Ethiopia, but last year it was rampant even at low altitudes. This could reflect the appearance of a new race that is less temperature sensitive, or simply the unusual weather conditions; Ethiopian researchers are currently waiting for the results of a rust race analysis.

There was little Ethiopia could do to prevent the epidemic; imported fungicides controlled the disease where they were applied on time, but supplies were limited and expensive. Newly-released, resistant varieties provide a way out of danger. In particular, two CIMMYT lines released in Ethiopia in 2010 proved resistant to stripe rust in their target environments: Picaflor#1, which was released in Ethiopia as Kakaba, and Danphe#1, released as Danda’a. Picaflor#1 is targeted to environments where Kubsa is grown, and so has the potential to replace it, and Danphe#1 could similarly replace Galema. Both varieties are also high-yielding and resistant to Ug99.

CIMMYT scientists Hans-Joachim Braun (left) and Bekele Abeyo visit the fields of the Kulumsa Research Station where CIMMYT materials resistant to stripe rust are being multiplied for seed supply to Ethiopian farmers.

Seed multiplication of resistant CIMMYT varieties

As soon as the situation became clear, EIAR and the Ethiopian Seed Enterprise (the state-owned organization responsible for multiplication and distribution of improved seed of all major crops in Ethiopia) worked together to speed the multiplication of seed of these varieties, using irrigation during the dry seasons. This is happening now, with almost 500 hectares under multiplication over the winter—421 of Picaflor#1 and 70 of Danphe#1. Financial support from this project came from the USAID Famine Fund. Two resistant lines from the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) were released in Ethiopia in 2011, and will add to the diversity for resistance.

Eticha does not foresee any difficulty encouraging farmers to adopt the new varieties. In 2010 they were grown by 900 farmers on small on-farm demonstration plots, as part of EIAR’s routine annual program, so they have been seen—free of stripe rust—by thousands of farmers, and there will be more demonstration plots as more seed becomes available. However, “farmers are at risk still even if the varieties are there,” he says, “the problem is seed supply.” Some seed will reach farmers this year, but the priority will be ongoing multiplication to build up availability as fast as possible.

Hans-Joachim Braun, director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program, visited Ethiopia in 2010. “The epidemic was a real wake-up call,” he says. “Researchers have known for more than ten years that the varieties grown are susceptible. Farmers are not aware of the danger, so it is the responsibility of researchers and seed producers, if we know a variety is susceptible, to replace it with something better.”

Exploring rust solutions in Syria

The ongoing fight against the wheat rust diseases is an international, collaborative effort involving many partners in national programs and international organizations. CIMMYT works closely with ICARDA, which leads efforts against the wheat rust diseases in Central and West Asia and North Africa. At the International Wheat Stripe Rust Symposium, organized by ICARDA in Aleppo, Syria, during 18-20 April 2011, global experts developed strategies to prevent future rust outbreaks and to ensure the control and reduction of rust diseases in the long term.

Other participating organizations included CIMMYT, the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI), the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the UN, the International Development Research Center (IDRC, Canada), and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). More than 100 scientists from 31 countries presented work and shared ideas on wheat rust surveillance and monitoring, development and promotion of rust-resistant wheat varieties, and crop diversity strategies to slow the progress of rust outbreaks.

CIMMYT was represented by Hans-Joachim Braun and Ravi Singh. “Wheat crops and stripe rust like exactly the same conditions,” says Braun, “and they both love nitrogen. This means that where a farmer has a high yield potential, stripe rust takes it away, if the wheat variety is susceptible. In addition to the really devastating epidemics, the disease is very important because even in bumper years, farmers who grow susceptible varieties still can’t get a good yield.”

One thing all the attendees agreed on was the immediacy of the rust threat. New variants of both stem rust (also known as black rust) and stripe rust (or yellow rust), able to overcome the resistance of popular wheat varieties, are thriving under the more variable conditions caused by climate change, increasing their chances of spreading rapidly. Breeders in turn are quickly developing the varieties farmers need, with durable resistance to stem and stripe rust, as well as improved yield performance, drought tolerance, and regional suitability.

Other major areas of focus are the development of systems for monitoring and surveillance of rust to enable rapid response to initial outbreaks, and overcoming bottlenecks in getting resistant seed quickly to farmers. There is much to be done, but Singh is confident: “If donors, including national programs and the private sector, are willing to invest in wheat research and seed production, we can achieve significant results in a short time.”

“Ethiopian scientists responded quickly to the epidemic”, says Braun, “but there were heavy losses in 2010. What we need is better communications between scientists, seed producers, and decision makers to ensure the quick replacement of varieties.”

Building on a strong partnership

The value of the collaboration between CIMMYT and Ethiopia is already immeasurable for both partners. CIMMYT materials are routinely screened for rust at Meraro station, an Ethiopian hotspot, in increasing numbers as rust diseases have returned to the spotlight in recent years. CIMMYT lines are also a crucial input for Ethiopia’s national program.

“The contribution of CIMMYT is immense for us,” says Eticha. “CIMMYT provides us with a wide range of germplasm that is almost finished technology—one can say ready materials, that can be evaluated and released as varieties that can be used by farming communities.” Ethiopia has favorable agro-environments for wheat production, and the bread wheat area is expanding because of its high yields compared to indigenous tetraploid wheats. “Wheat is the third most important cereal crop in Ethiopia,” explains Eticha, “and it is really very important in transforming Ethiopia’s economy.”

Bekele Abeyo, CIMMYT senior scientist and wheat breeder based in Ethiopia, works closely with the national program. CIMMYT helps in many ways, he explains, for example with training and capacity building, as well as donation of materials, including computers, vehicles, and even chemicals for research. “In addition, we assign scientists to work closely with the national program, and facilitate germplasm exchange, providing high-yielding, disease resistant, widely-adapted varieties.” Speaking of the stripe rust epidemic, he says, “last year, the Ethiopian government spent more than USD 3.2 million just to buy fungicides, so imagine, the use of resistant varieties can save a lot of money. Most farmers are not able to buy these expensive fungicides. During the epidemic, fungicides were selling for three to four times their normal price, so you can see the value of resistant varieties.”

“I think East Africa is colonized by rust. Unless national programs work hard to overcome and contain disease pressure, wheat production is under great threat,” says Abeyo. “It is very important that we continue to strengthen the national programs to overcome the rust problem in the region.” With Yr27-virulent stripe rust races now widespread throughout the world, Ethiopia’s story has echoes in many CIMMYT partner countries. The challenge is to work quickly together to identify and replace susceptible varieties with the new, productive, resistant materials.

For more information: Bekele Abeyo, senior scientist and wheat breeder (b.abeyo@cgiar.org)

MELISA: Mechanization for SIMLESA

Written by on May 4, 2012. Posted in News.

Farm mechanization has progressed little if at all in sub-Saharan Africa, due to a lack of demand, promotion of unsuitable or unreliable machines, little support infrastructure, promotion of inappropriate machinery, an overriding development focus on seeds and fertilizer, and negative perceptions about the social and equity effects of mechanization.

During 10-13 April 2012, more than 50 participants from 12 countries in eastern and southern Africa took part in a workshop organized by the CIMMYT global conservation agriculture program to re-explore the issue and help develop a proposal for the project “Mechanization, entrepreneurship, and conservation agriculture to leverage sustainable intensification in eastern and southern Africa” (MELISA), which will build upon the ACIAR-funded project SIMLESA. The group included agronomists, socioeconomists, agricultural engineers, and private sector representatives.

Re-opening the debate about mechanization was deemed timely because farming in the region relies on increasingly fewer draft animals, tractor hiring schemes have collapsed, field labor is in ever-shorter supply, and the extreme drudgery of many farm operations often falls to women and generally makes agriculture unattractive to the young.

The project is expected to build on experiences with small-scale, intensified farming systems in South Asia—for example, 80% of all operations in Bangladesh are mechanized and mostly done by service providers—and on SIMLESA networks and activities to test and promote conservation agriculture. Both small-scale mechanization and conservation agriculture promise to improve smallholders’ “power” budget: mechanization increases the supply, whereas conservation agriculture reduces the demand by about half; thus smaller, more affordable sources of power, such as two-wheel tractors, can be used. Similarly, shifting from draft animals to tractors would free up substantial biomass (a pair of oxen consumes about nine tons of forage per year) that can be left as residues on the soil. As specific objectives, MELISA will:

evaluate and demonstrate small-scale motorized conservation agriculture technologies in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe, using expertise, knowledge, skills, and implements from Africa, South Asia, and Australia;
test site-specific market systems to support mechanization in those countries;
identify improvements in national policies and markets for wide adoption; and
create awareness and share knowledge about mechanization.

The project will be submitted to ACIAR Australia and, if approved, could start in late 2012.

MELISA