Paswel Marenya is a Senior Scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). He is the global coordinator of the SIMLESA project, based in Nairobi.
Marenya holds an MSc in Applied Economics and a PhD in Natural Resources Policy and Management, both from Cornell University. His research focuses on maize-based smallholder systems in eastern and southern Africa, and on the analysis of pathways and impacts of technology adoption within the framework of sustainable intensification.
He has published research on farmer policy, farmer preferences for supporting technology adoption among maize farmers in Malawi, soil quality mediated returns to fertilizer, and the macro impacts of disease tolerant varieties. He is currently working on understanding the most effective investment priorities for strengthening climate-smart agriculture in eastern and southern Africa.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) and the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (ASARECA) gathered agriculture leaders, experts, Â ministers and permanent secretaries from 14 countries in the region May 2-4, 2019 in Kampala, Uganda. These experts reflected on the lessons learned from the eight year-long Sustainable Intensification of Maize and Legumes farming systems in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project, funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).
The minister of agriculture, animal industry and fisheries of Uganda, Vincent Ssempijja, reminded that âAfrica is paying a high price from widespread land degradation, and climate change is worsening the challenges smallholder farmers are facing.â Staple crop yields are lagging despite a wealth of climate-smart technologies like drought-tolerant maize varieties or conservation agriculture.
âIt is time for business unusual,â urged guest speaker Kirunda Kivejinja, Ugandaâs Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of East African Affairs.
Research conducted by CIMMYT and national partners in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda under the SIMLESA project provided good evidence that sustainable intensification based on conservation agriculture works â it significantly increased food crop yields, up to 38%, as well as incomes, while sustainably preserving soil health.
In Malawi, where conservation agriculture adoption rose from 2% in 2011 to 35% in the 2017/18 season, research showed increases in water infiltration compared to the conventional ridge-and-furrow system of up to 90%, while soil organic carbon content increased by 30%. This means that soil moisture is better retained after rainfall, soil is more fertile, and plants grow well and cope much better during dry spells.
The SIMLESA project revealed that many farmers involved in CIMMYT research work, like Joseph Ntirivamunda in Rwanda, were interested in shifting towards more sustainable intensification practices. However, large-scale adoption still faces many hurdles.
âYou cannot eat potential,â pointed out CIMMYT scientists and SIMLESA project leader Paswel Marenya. âThe promise of conservation agriculture for sustainable intensification needs to be translated into more food and incomes, for farmers to adopt it widely.â
CIMMYT’s director general Martin Kropff (left) greets Uganda’s second deputy prime minister, Kirunda Kivejninja. (Photo: Jerome Bossuet)
The scale conundrum
Farmersâ linkages to markets and services are often weak, and a cautious analysis of trade-offs is necessary. For instance, more research is needed about the competing uses of crop residues for animal feed or soil cover.
Peter Horne, General Manager for ACIARâs global country programs, explained that science has an important role in informing policy to drive this sustainable transformation. There are still important knowledge gaps to better understand what drives key sustainable farming practices. Horne advised to be more innovative than the traditional research-for-development and extension approaches, involving for instance the private sector.
Planting using a hoe requires 160 hours of labor per hectare. A two-wheel tractor equipped with a planter will do the same work in only 3 hours.
One driver of change that was stressed during the Kampala forum was the access to appropriate machinery, like the two-wheel tractor equipped with a direct planter. While hoe planting requires 160 hours of labor per hectare, the planter needs only 3 hours per hectare, enabling timely planting, a crucial factor to respond effectively to the increased vagaries of the weather and produce successful harvests. While some appropriate mechanization options are available at the pilot stage in several African countries like Ethiopia or Zimbabwe, finding the right business models for service provision for each country is key to improve access to appropriate tools and technologies for smallholder farmers. CIMMYT and ACIAR seek to provide some answers through the complementary investments in the Farm Mechanization and Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification (FACASI) project.
CASI can be scaled but requires tailoring sustainable intensification agronomic advices adapted to local environment and farming systems. Agricultural innovation platforms like the Mwanga mechanization youth group in Zimbabwe are one way to co-create solutions and opportunities between specific value chain actors, addressing some of the constraints farmers may face while implementing conservation agriculture practices.
Providing market incentives for farmers has been one challenging aspect, which may be overcome through public-private partnerships. Kilimo Trust presented a new consortium model to drive sustainable intensification through a market pull, linking smallholder farmers with food processors or aggregators.
âSIMLESA, as a long-term ambitious research program, has delivered remarkable results in diverse farming contexts, and conservation agriculture for sustainable intensification now has a more compelling case,â said Eric Huttner, ACIAR research program manager. âWe should not ignore the complexity of conservation agriculture adoption, as shifting to new farming practices brings practical changes and potential risks for farmers, alongside benefits,â he added. As an immediate step, Huttner suggested research to define who in the public and private sectors is investing and for what purpose â for example, access to seed or machinery. Governments will also need further technical support to determine exactly how to mainstream conservation agriculture in  future agricultural policy conversations, plans and budgets.
âLooking at SIMLESAâs evidence, we can say that conservation agriculture works for our farmers,â concluded Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko, Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture of the African Union. During the next African Union Specialized Technical Committee in October 2019, she will propose a new initiative, scaling conservation agriculture for sustainable intensification across Africa âto protect our soils and feed our people sustainably.â
Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko, Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture of the African Union, speaks at the SIMLESA regional forum. (Photo: Jerome Bossuet)
Tackling the challenges of climate change and increasing scarcity of resources like arable land and water requires that farming and food systems around the world undergo fundamental shifts in thinking and practices. A new book draws on experiences of men and women farmers across eastern and southern Africa who have been associated with the Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project. The inspiring and moving accounts tell the story of how these farmers have bravely embraced change to improve their farming methods and consequently the lives and livelihoods of their families.
The maize-growing regions of southern and eastern Africa face many challenges, including lower than average yields, crop susceptibility to pests and diseases, and abiotic stresses such as droughts that can be frequent and severe. There is also widespread lack of access to high-yielding stress resilient improved seed and other farming innovations, presenting a need for scalable technologies, adapted to farmersâ growing conditions.
Maize is the most important staple crop in the region, feeding more than 200-300 million people across Africa and providing food and income security to millions of smallholder farmers. Prioritization of cost reducing, yield enhancing and resource conserving farming methods is vital to catalyze a shift towards sustainable and resilient maize agri-food systems. Conservation agriculture (CA) is one promising approach.
Launched in 2010, SIMLESA is led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and funded by the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). The project supports farmers and partner organizations to achieve increased food production while minimizing pressure on the environment by using smallholder farmersâ resources more efficiently through CA approaches. SIMLESA is implemented by national agricultural research systems, agribusinesses and farmers in partner countries including, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
The farmersâ words in this book drive home the core philosophy of SIMLESA: that critical paradigm shifts in smallholder farming are possible and can lead to positive and potentially lasting impacts.
The candid accounts of the benefits yielded from adopting new practices like CA are a testimony to this idea: âNow we have seen with our own eyes these new methods are beneficial, and we want to continue what we are doingâŠ.my field is a school where others can learn,â said Maria Gorete, a farmer in Mozambique.
Policy makers and scientists from eastern and southern Africa met in Uganda at a regional forum convened by the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA), on 3-4 May 2019. The forum discussed ways to scale up the learnings of SIMLESA and a joint communique recommending policy actions was signed by the Ministers of Agriculture of the Republic of Burundi, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the State of Eritrea, the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, the Republic of Kenya, the Republic of Madagascar, the Republic of Rwanda, the Republic of South Sudan, the Republic of the Sudan, the United Republic of Tanzania, the Republic of Uganda, the Republic of Malawi and the Republic of Mozambique of the high level Ministerial Panel on Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA).
Isaiah Nyagumbo is a cropping systems agronomist working with CIMMYT’s Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program. He is passionate about soil and water conservation technologies, and participatory technology development for farmers.
Prior to joining CIMMYT in 2010, he completed a DPhil on seasonal water balance in conservation tillage systems and spent several years working as a lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe.
As part of the SIMLESA team, he has mainly works on developing sustainable and resilient conservation agriculture-based production systems in southern Africa, where he is regional coordinator of agronomy activities.
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African maize farmers must deal with drought, weeds, and pests, but their problems start with degraded, nutrient-starved soils and their inability to purchase enough nitrogen fertilizer. Maize yields of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are a fraction of those in the developed world, due mainly to the regionâs poor soils and farmersâ limited access to fertilizer or improved maize seed. On average, such farmers apply only 9 kilograms of fertilizer per hectare of cropland. Of that small amount, often less than half is captured by the crop; the rest is leached deep into the soil where plants cannot recover it or otherwise lost.
The Improved Maize for African Soils Project (IMAS)Â develops maize varieties that are better at capturing the small amount of fertilizer that African farmers can afford, and that use the nitrogen they take up more efficiently to produce grain. Project participants will use cutting-edge biotechnology tools such as molecular markersâDNA âsignpostsâ for traits of interestâand transgenic approaches to develop varieties that ultimately yield 30 to 50 percent more than currently available varieties, with the same amount of nitrogen fertilizer applied or when grown on poorer soils.
The varieties developed will be made available royalty-free to seed companies that sell to the regionâs smallholder farmers, meaning that the seed will become available to farmers at the same cost as other types of improved maize seed.
In four years or less, African farmers should have access to IMAS varieties developed using conventional breeding that offer a 20 percent yield advantage over current varieties. Improved varieties developed using DNA marker techniques are expected to be introduced within seven to nine years, and those containing transgenic traits are expected to be available in approximately 10 years, pending product performance and regulatory approvals by national regulatory and scientific authorities, according to the established laws and regulatory procedures in each country.
The second phase of IMAS continues to be implemented through the Seed Production Technology for Africa (SPTA) project.
OBJECTIVES
Conventional and marker assisted breeding to develop hybrids and OPVs with improved nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) adapted to southern and eastern Africa
Identification and deployment of native trait alleles to enhance yield under low nitrogen conditions through association mapping and Quantitative Trait Loci mapping
Development of transgenic maize varieties adapted to southern and eastern Africa with increased yield under severe nitrogen limitation
Managing NUE varieties for sustainability in African maize cropping systems
Project stewardship, public awareness and capacity building
NUE variety registration, release and dissemination in southern and eastern Africa
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Agricultural intensification is both a need and an opportunity for countries in sub-Sahara Africa. For intensification to occur sustainably â with minimum negative environmental and social consequences â it is widely recognized that resources must be used with much greater efficiency. Although much emphasis is being placed in current research for development work on increasing the efficiency with which land, water and nutrients are being used, farm power appears as the âforgotten resource.â However, farm power in countries sub-Saharan Africa is declining due to the collapse of most hire tractor schemes, the decline in number of draft animals and the decline in human labor related to rural-urban migration. Another aspect of low farm power is high labor drudgery, which affects women, who generally due the majority of threshing, shelling and transport by head-loadings, disproportionally. Undoubtedly, sustainable intensification in these countries will require an improvement of farm-power balance through increased power supply â via improved access to mechanization â and/or reduced power demand â via energy saving technologies such as conservation agriculture techniques.
The Farm Mechanization and Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification project examines how best to exploit synergies between small-scale-mechanization and conservation agriculture. The overall goal of the project is to improve farm power balance, reduce labour drudgery, and minimize biomass trade-offs in Eastern and Southern Africa, through accelerated delivery and adoption of two-wheel-tractor-based technologies by smallholders.
This project is now in the second phase, which began on June 1, 2017.
OBJECTIVES
To evaluate and demonstrate two wheel tractor-based technologies in the four selected sites of Eastern and Southern Africa, using expertise/knowledge/skills/implements from Africa, South Asia and Australia
To test site-specific market systems to deliver two wheel tractor-based mechanization in the four countries
To identify improvements in national markets and policies for wide delivery of two wheel tractor-based mechanization
To create awareness on two wheel tractor-based technologies in the sub-region and share knowledge and information with other regions
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The Water Efficient Maize for Africa partnership was launched in March 2008 to help farmers manage the risk of drought by developing and deploying maize varieties that yield 24 to 35 percent more grain under moderate drought conditions than currently available varieties. The higher and more reliable harvests will help farmers to feed their families and increase their incomes.
The varieties are being developed using conventional breeding, marker-assisted breeding, and biotechnology, and will be marketed royalty-free to smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa through African seed companies. The current, second phase of the project (2013â2017) includes breeding for resistance to stem borersâinsect pests that seriously damage maize crops in the fieldâas well as product and production management, promotion with seed companies and farmers, and product stewardship activities.
The project focuses on Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The second phase of the project began on February 1, 2013.
OBJECTIVES
Product development. Develop and test drought tolerant and and insect-pest resistant maize varieties through conventional, molecular, and genetic engineering breeding approaches.
Regulatory affairs and compliance. Support multi-location testing and commercial release of drought tolerant and insect-pest resistant maize hybrids in the Water Efficient Maize for Africa partner countries.
Product deployment: Product and production management. Facilitate the marketing and stewardship of drought tolerant and insect-pest resistant hybrid maize seeds, and stimulate private sector investments for sustainable seed production, distribution and us
Communications and outreach. Support testing, dissemination, commercialization, adoption, and stewardship of conventional and transgenic drought tolerant and insect-pest resistant hybrids in the five target countries.
Legal and licensing support. Develop and implement appropriate licensing and intellectual property protection mechanisms for Water Efficient Maize for Africa products.
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 farmersâ 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.
âThis position is supposed to bring in a business kind of thinking in the way products and varieties are developed,â 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.
âYou 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.â
Mashonganyikaâs 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 farmerâs 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:
âWhen 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,â said Mashonganyika. âWe 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 âwe need to follow what the market is saying.ââ
â[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,â said Mashonganyika. âThere are so many women farmers, especially in Africa, so when you begin to incorporate gender, we are increasing the scope of impact.â
Although actors such as seed producers or food processors may have no breeding expertise, Mashonganyika views their input as essential: âThey 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.â
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. âThey give information about seed multiplication processes, and what makes a variety be considered for multiplication in seed systems.â
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.
âWith product profiles we say a breeder should be accountable for delivering each product in a certain timeframe,â said Tawanda. âWe 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.â
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.
âI hope that in the near future we will see other CGIAR centers developing similar positions,â said Mashonganyika.
The CIMMYT-Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN) Screening Facility quarantine site is used to provide an MLN Phenotyping Service at cost to national agricultural research systems and seed companies in Africa.
KALRO and CIMMYT have been screening germplasm against MLN in Kenya since Nov 2012. The dedicated screening facility at KALRO Naivasha was established in 2013. This facility now represents a high quality phenotyping platform, permitting large-scale screening of germplasm from regional public and private partners.
To date, close to 90 percent of materials screened at Naivasha are susceptible under artificial inoculation. However, resistant and tolerant materials have been identified. Four first-generation MLN tolerant and resistant hybrids have been released in East Africa and a further 15-20 second generation hybrids are at advanced stages of testing.
This four-year Maize Lethal Necrosis Diagnostics and Prevention of Seed Transmission project will coordinate regional efforts to strengthen response to the rapid emergence and spread of Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN).
Coordinated by CIMMYT, it will establish a community of practice among national plant protection organizations in eastern Africa for implementing harmonized MLN diagnostic protocols for detecting MLN-causing viruses and enable commercial seed companies to implement necessary standard operational procedures to produce MLN-free clean seed at various points along the maize seed value chain. It will also step-up MLN surveillance and monitoring in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, three of the major commercial maize seed exporting countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
The MLN project will be implemented in close partnership with the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, the African Agricultural Technology Foundation, national plant protection organizations and commercial seed companies in eastern Africa. It will also pool expertise from relevant public- and private-sector partners, regional organizations, and seed trade organizations operating in the region.
Partners: Â The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, the African Agricultural Technology Foundation, national plant protection organizations and commercial seed companies in eastern Africa
Following the recent emergence and rapid spread of the fall armyworm pest in Africa, the Breeding for Resistance to Fall Armyworm in Africa project is beginning the process of identifying and developing new varieties of maize resistant to the pest.
The Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) program aims to improve maize and legume productivity by 30 percent and to reduce the expected downside yield risk by 30 percent on approximately on approximately 650,000 farm households by 2023. Launched in 2010, the focal countries of program research are Australia, Botswana, Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The main thrust of the SIMLESA program is increasing farm-level food security, productivity and incomes through promotion of maize-legume intercropping systems in the context of reduced climate risk and change.
The program has also laid the foundation for developing conservation agriculture based sustainable intensification options, including integration of improved maize and legume varieties identified for their compatibility with CA-based practices; promoting technology adoption by both female and male farmers; capacity building for national agricultural research systems of partner countries; creating enhanced partnerships and collaboration with established innovation platforms for coordinated scaling-out of SIMLESA-generated options and practices.
Funding Institutions:Â Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR)
Partners: National agricultural systems of Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania, as well as international and local research centers, extension agencies, non-governmental organizations, universities and agribusinesses along the value chain.
