Farmers in Coahuila are embracing technology by using WhatsApp to exchange experiences and access technical information, especially on sustainable farming practices such as ecological pest management.
Read more (in Spanish) here:Â https://www.forbes.com.mx/noticias-whatsapp-campesinos-coahuila-no-parar-en-pandemia-coronavirus/
Researchers from the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project have been exploring the drivers of smallholder farmersâ underuse of groundwater wells to combat in-season drought during the monsoon rice season in Nepalâs breadbasket â the Terai region.
Their study, published in Water International, finds that several barriers inhibit full use of groundwater irrigation infrastructure.
Inconsistent rainfall has repeatedly damaged paddy crops in Nepal over the last years, even though most agricultural lands are equipped with groundwater wells. This has contributed to missed national policy targets of food self-sufficiency and slow growth in cereal productivity.
A key issue is farmersâ tendency to schedule irrigation very late in an effort to save their crops when in-season drought occurs. By this time, rice crops have already been damaged by lack of water and yields will be decreased. High irrigation costs, especially due to pumping equipment rental rates, are a major factor of this aversion to investment. Private irrigation is also a relatively new technology for many farmers making water use decisions.
After farmers decide to irrigate, queuing for pumpsets, tubewells, and repairs and maintenance further increases irrigation delays. Some villages have only a handful of pumpsets or tubewells shared between all households, so it can take up to two weeks for everybody to irrigate.
To address these issues, CSISA provides suggestions for three support pathways to support farmers in combatting monsoon season drought:
1. Raise awareness of the importance of timely irrigation
To avoid yield penalties and improve operational efficiency through better-matched pumpsets, CSISA has raised awareness through agricultural FM radio broadcasts on the strong relationship between water stress and yield penalties. Messages highlight the role of the plough pan in keeping infiltration rates low and encouraging farmers to improve irrigation scheduling. Anecdotal evidence suggests that improved pump selection may decrease irrigation costs by up to 50%, and CSISA has initiated follow-up studies to develop recommendations for farmers.
Social interaction is necessary for purchasing fuel, transporting and installing pumps, or sharing irrigation equipment. These activities pose risks of COVID-19 exposure and transmission and therefore require farmers to follow increased safety and hygiene practices, which may cause further delays to irrigation. Raising awareness about the importance of timely irrigation therefore needs to go hand in hand with the promotion of safe and hygienic irrigation practices. This information has been streamlined into CSISAâs ongoing partnerships and FM broadcasts.
2. Improve community-level water markets through increased focus on drought preparedness and overcoming financial constraints
Farmers can save time by taking an anticipatory approach to the terms and conditions of rentals, instead of negotiating them when cracks in the soil are already large. Many farmers reported that pump owners are reluctant to rent out pumpsets if renters cannot pay up front. Given the seasonality of cash flows in agriculture, pro-poor and low interest credit provisions are likely to further smoothen community-level water markets.
3. Prioritize regional investment
The study shows that delay factors differ across districts and that selectively targeted interventions will be most useful to provide high returns to investments. For example, farmers in Kailali reported that land access issues — due to use of large bullock carts to transport pumpsets — and fuel shortages constitute a barrier for 10% and 39% of the farmers, while in Rupandehi, maintenance and tubewell availability were reported to be of greater importance.
As drought is increasingly threatening paddy production in Nepalâs Terai region, CSISAâs research shows that several support pathways exist to support farmers in combatting droughts. Sustainable water use can only be brought up to a scale where it benefits most farmers if all available tools including electrification, solar pumps and improved water level monitoring are deployed to provide benefits to a wide range of farmers.
Read the study:
Drivers of groundwater utilization in water-limited rice production systems in Nepal
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to widen, its effects on the agriculture sector are also becoming apparent. In countries like Ethiopia, where farming is the backbone of the nationâs economy, early preparation can help mitigate adverse effects.
Recently, Fana Broadcasting Corporate (Fana Television) organized a panel discussion on how the Ethiopian government and its partners are responding to this crisis. Analyzing this topic were Kindie Tesfaye from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Mandefro Negussi of the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) and Esayas Lemma from the Ministry of Agriculture.
The panelists highlighted Ethiopiaâs readiness in response to COVID-19. The country established a team from various institutions to work on strategies and to ensure no further food shortages occur due to the pandemic. The strategy involves the continuation of activity already started during the Bleg season â short rainy season â and the preparation for the Meher season â long rainy season â to be complemented by food production through irrigation systems during the dry season, if the crisis continues beyond September 2020.
Tesfaye indicated that CIMMYT continues to work at the national and regional levels as before, and is represented in the advisory team. One of the activities underway, he said, is the plan to use the Agro-Climate Advisory Platform to disseminate COVID-19 related information to extension agents and farmers.
Panelists agreed that the pandemic will also impact the Ethiopian farming system, which is performed collectively and relies heavily on human labor. To minimize the spread of the virus, physical distancing is highly advisable. Digital media, social media and megaphones will be used to reach out to extension agents and farmers and encourage them to apply all the necessary precaution measures while on duty. Training will also continue through digital means as face to face meetings will not be possible.
Full interview in Amharic:
Women in societies practicing wheat-based agriculture have started challenging the norm of men being sole decision-makers. They are transitioning from workers to innovators and managers, a recent study has found.
Women were adopting specific strategies to further their interests in the context of wheat-based livelihoods, the study found. The process, however, is far from straightforward.
Read more here:Â https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/agriculture/women-farmers-emerging-as-decision-makers-innovators-in-wheat-based-systems-study-72344
A study on the impact of providing site-specific fertilizer recommendations on fertilizer usage, productivity and welfare outcomes in Ethiopia shows that targeted fertilizer recommendations encourage fertilizer investments and lead to improved maize productivity outcomes.
Researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Department of Economics and Trinity Impact Evaluation unit (TIME), Trinity College Dublin, anticipate that the findings will provide valuable guidance to the design and delivery of improved extension services in developing countries.
Soil degradation and nutrient depletion have been serious threats to agricultural productivity and food security in Ethiopia. Over the years, soil fertility has also declined due to the increase in population size and decline in plot size. Studies have identified nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) as being the nutrients most lacking and have called for action to improve the nutrient status of soils.
In response to this, in 2007, the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources and agricultural research centers together developed regional fertilizer recommendations. These recommendations, about fertilizer types and application rates for different crops, were disseminated to farmers through agricultural extension workers and development agents.
However, adoption of fertilizer remains low â and average application rates are generally lower than recommended. One reason for these low adoption rates is that the information provided is too broad and not tailored to the specific requirements of smallholder farmers.
A study conducted on 738 farm households randomly selected from the main maize growing areas of Ethiopia â Bako, Jimma and the East Shewa and West Gojjam zones â shows that well-targeted fertilizer recommendations can increase fertilizer usage in smallholder maize production.
Maize is one of Ethiopiaâs most important crops in terms of production, productivity, and area coverage. It is a primary staple food in the major maize growing areas as well as a source of feed for animals and a raw material for industries.
The study examined the impact of providing site-specific fertilizer recommendations to farmers on fertilizer usage/adoption, farm productivity/production per hectare and consumer expenditure/welfare outcomes using a two-level cluster randomized control trial.
Tailored recommendations
The Nutrient Expert decision-support tool, developed by the International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI) in partnership with the CGIAR Research Center on Maize (MAIZE), was used to give site-specific recommendations to each farmer. With this tool, researchers offered tailored recommendations, using information on fertilizer blends available in Ethiopia, current farmersâ practices, relevant inputs and field history, and local conditions. The experiment also considered whether coupling the site-specific recommendation with crop insurance â to protect farmersâ fertilizer investment in the event of crop failure â enhanced adoption rates.
Results show that well-targeted fertilizer recommendations improve fertilizer usage and productivity of maize production. The intervention led to an increase of 5 quintals, or 0.5 tons, in average maize yields for plots in the treatment group. While the study did not find any evidence that these productivity gains led to household welfare improvements, it is likely that such improvements may take longer to realize.
The study found no differential effect of the site-specific recommendation when coupled with agricultural insurance, suggesting that the risk of crop failure is not a binding constraint to fertilizer adoption in the study setting. The findings of this research should help guide the design and delivery of improved extension services in relation to fertilizer usage and adoption in developing countries.
Cover photo:Â Workers harvesting green maize at Ambo Research Center, Ethiopia, 2015. (Photo: CIMMYT/ Peter Lowe)
A set of core survey questions has been developed in a bid to improve the collection and use of rural farm household data from low and middle-income countries.
Leading agricultural socioeconomists developed the 100Q report, which outlines 100 core questions to identify key indicators around agricultural activities and off-farm income, as well as key welfare indicators focusing on poverty, food security, dietary diversity, and gender equity.
The aim is to forge an international standard approach to ensure socioeconomic data sets are comparable over time and space, said Mark Van Wijk, the lead author of the recent report published through CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture.
Agricultural researchers interview hundreds of thousands of farmers across the world every year. Each survey is developed with a unique approach for a specific research question. These varied approaches to household surveys limit the impact data can have when researchers aim to reuse results to gain deeper insights.
âA standard set of questions across all farm household surveys means researchers can compare different data points to identify common drivers of poverty and food insecurity among different populations to more efficiently inform development strategies and improve livelihoods,â said Van Wijk, a senior scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).
Finding common ground among data collection efforts is essential for optimizing the impact of socioeconomic data. Instead of reinventing the wheel each time researchers develop surveys, researchers in the CGIARâs Community of Practice on Socio-Economic Data (CoP SED) formed core questions they believe should become the base of all farm household surveys to improve the ability for global analysis.
CoP SED is promoting the use of the 100Q report as building blocks in survey development through webinars with international agricultural researchers. The community is also doing further research into tagging existing survey data with ontology terms from the 100Q to improve reusability.
Harmonization key to the fair use of data
Managing shared data is becoming increasingly important as we move towards an open data world, said Gideon Kruseman, leader of the CoP SED and author of the report.
âFor shareable data to be actionable, it needs to be FAIR: findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. This is the heart of the Community of Practice on Socio-Economic Dataâs work.â
At the moment, international agricultural household survey data is disorganized; the proliferation of survey tools and indicators lead to datasets which are often poorly documented and have limited interoperability, explained Kruseman.
Itâs estimated that CGIARâthe worldâs largest network of agricultural researchersâconducts interviews with around 180,000 farmers per year. However, these interviews have lacked standardization in the socioeconomic domain for decades, leading to holes in our understanding of the agriculture, poverty, nutrition, and gender characteristics of these households.
The 100Q tool has been systematically designed to enable the quantification of interactions between different components and outcomes of agricultural systems, including productivity and human welfare at the farm and household level, said Kruseman, a Foresight and Ex-Ante Research Leader at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Streamlining survey data through the worldâs largest agricultural research network
Using these building blocks should become standard practice across CGIAR. The researchers hope standardization across all CGIAR institutes will allow for easier application of big data methods for analyzing the household level data themselves, as well as for linking these data to other larger scale information sources like spatial crop yield data, climate data, market access data, and roadmap data.
Researchers from several CGIAR research organizations, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and agricultural nonprofits worked to create the common layout for household surveys and the sets of ontologies underpinning the information to be collected.
âBeing able to reuse data is extremely valuable. If household survey data is readily reusable, existing data sets can be used as baselines. It allows us to easily assess how welfare indicators vary across populations and different agro-ecological and socioeconomic conditions, as well as how they may change over time,â Kruseman said.
âIt also improves the effectiveness of interventions and the trade-offs between outcomes, which may be shaped by household structure, farm management, and the wider social-environmental.â
CoP SED researchers work in three groups towards improving socioeconomic data interoperability. The 100Q working group focuses on identifying key indicators and related questions that are commonly used and could be used as a standard approach to ensure data sets are comparable over time and space. The working group SEONT focuses on the development of a socioeconomic ontology with accepted standardized terms to be used in controlled vocabularies linked to socioeconomic data sets. The working group OIMS focuses on the development of a flexible and extensible, ontology-agnostic, human-intelligible, and machine-readable metadata schema to accompany socioeconomic data sets.
For more information, visit the CoP SED webpage.
Cover photo:Â A paddy in front of a house in Tri Budi Syukur village, West Lampung regency, Lampung province, Indonesia. (Photo:Â Ulet Ifansasti/CIFOR)
The agricultural market has been suffering since the government of Nepal imposed a lockdown from March 23, 2020 to limit the spread of COVID-19 in the country. A month after the lockdown, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) conducted a rapid assessment survey to gauge the extent of disruptions of the lockdown on households from farming communities and agribusinesses.
As part of the Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) project, CIMMYT researchers surveyed over 200 key stakeholders by phone from 26 project districts. These included 103 agrovet owners and 105 cooperative managers who regularly interact with farming communities and provide agricultural inputs to farmers. The respondents served more than 300,000 households.
The researchers targeted maize growing communities for the survey since the survey period coincided with the primary maize season.
Key insights from the survey
The survey showed that access to maize seed was a major problem that farmers experienced since the majority of agrovets were not open for business and those that were partially open â around 23% â did not have much customer flow due to mobility restrictions during the lockdown.
The stock of hybrid seed was found to be less than open pollinated varieties (OPVs) in most of the domains. Due to restrictions on movement during the entire maize-planting season, many farmers must have planted OPVs or saved seeds.
Access to fertilizers such as urea, DAP and MOP was another major problem for farmers since more than half of the cooperatives and agrovets reported absence of fertilizer stock in their area. The stock of recommended pesticides to control pests such as fall armyworm was reported to be limited or out of stock at the cooperatives and agrovets.
Labor availability and use of agricultural machineries was not seen as a huge problem during the lockdown in the surveyed districts.
It was evident that food has been a priority for all household expenses. More than half of the total households mentioned that they would face food shortages if the lockdown continues beyond a month.
During the survey, around 36% of households specified cash shortages to purchase agricultural inputs, given that a month had already passed since the lockdown began in the country. The majority of the respondents reported that the farm households were managing their cash requirements by borrowing from friends and relatives, local cooperatives or selling household assets such as livestock and agricultural produces.
Most of the households said that they received food rations from local units called Palikas, while a small number of Palikas also provided subsidized seeds and facilitated transport of agricultural produce to market during the lockdown. Meanwhile, the type of support preferred by farming communities to help cope with the COVID-19 disruptions â ranging from food rations, free or subsidized seed, transportation of fertilizers and agricultural produce, and provision of credit â varied across the different domains.
The survey also assessed the effect of lockdown on agribusinesses like agrovets who are major suppliers of seed, and in a few circumstances sell fertilizer to farmers in Nepal. As the lockdown enforced restrictions on movement, farmers could not purchase inputs from agrovets even when the agrovets had some stock available in their area. About 86% of agrovets spoke of the difficulty to obtain supplies from their suppliers due to the blockage of transportation and product unavailability, thereby causing a 50-90% dip in their agribusinesses.
Immediate actions to consider
Major takeaways from this survey are as follows:
The survey findings were presented and shared with the government, private sector, development partner organizations and project staff over a virtual meeting. This report will serve as a resource for the project and various stakeholders to design their COVID-19 response and recovery strategy development and planning.
It was an early morning on March 12, 2020, when we entered Kiyasi Gwalaleâs field in the Chebvute area of Masvingo, southern Zimbabwe. Gwalale participates in the Zambuko Livelihoods Initiative, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The Zambuko initiative aims to increase rural resilience against the negative effects of climate change. More than 70% of smallholders in Zimbabwe farm on sandy soils that are low in soil fertility and are increasingly affected by the vagaries of climate. The Gwalale family is an example of one of the millions affected.
In Chebvute, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has established trials to test the effectiveness and productivity of conservation agriculture and climate resilient crop species since 2018. This has been in the form of âmother and babyâ trials.
A traditional tool of breeders, âmother trialsâ show different technologies to farmers to allow them to select the best option. In Chebvute, these trials were amplified to demonstrate farmersâ crop management practices such as conservation agriculture, crop rotation with legumes and different drought-resilient crop varieties.
Baby trial farmers taking after their âmothersâ
Since 2019, the best options have been taken on by follower farmers in so called âbaby trialsâ, where they use a subset from the mother trials to gain first-hand experience with the technology. Learning by doing is a central concept of this approach.
Gwalale as a âbaby trial farmerâ learned from the mother trials that drought-tolerant maize varieties out-yield traditional varieties under conservation agriculture, but need to be rotated with legumes to also improve the soil and the nutrition of the farm household. In addition, she realized that planting white sorghum is a drought-resilient strategy in this area as small grains are less affected by in-season dry-spells.
Gwalale and her family have been resident in Chebvute for 15 years but farm only on 0.4 ha of land. With her husband and three children, she grows maize, sorghum, groundnuts and Bambara nuts. What she gets from these fields is barely enough to survive.
In the 2019/20 cropping season, a devastating drought lasting from mid-December to mid-January destroyed all her hopes that this year would be a better season. Instead, she went on an educational journey to find out how improved farming practices can make a difference in her own life.
âWe planted this baby trial for the first time in December 2019, as we had seen from the nearby mother trials that these varieties planted under no-tillage seem to grow better than our own. We planted the baby at the same times as our own crops, but instead of tilling the soil and clearing the land, which we are used to, we just planted in riplines without tillage and covered the soil with mulch,â explains Gwalale.
âWhen the drought came, all my other crops in the tilled fields started to wilt and die â some did not even germinate. We could not believe what was happening in this baby trialâ.
Resounding results in the baby trial
All crops in the baby trial survived the dry-spell and when the rains started to fall again in January, they continued to grow very well. Gwalale replanted the crops in the affected fields but they never caught up with the baby trial. Even after using the ripper to make more riplines, it was too late to experience the same wonder seen in the baby trial. âFor now, we are yet to see how much we will get from this small field, but we learned a big lesson and want to expand our land area with this way of planting next year,â she says.
More than 200 baby trial farmers in Chebvute, the majority of which are women, have experienced the same in their own baby trials and realized that it does not take much effort to achieve food security.
Timely planting, conserving the soil and the moisture with conservation agriculture, effective weeding and application of adequate plant nutrients are the key ingredients of success. This can be learned effectively in a small plot such as a baby trial. Farmers have realized that it is possible to make a difference when they apply the principles of sustainable agriculture in their farming systems. The interventions introduced will help them to become more climate-resilient and ultimately more food secure.
June marks the start of the rice growing season in Indiaâs breadbasket but on the quiet fields of Haryana and Punjab you wouldnât know it.
Usually the northwestern Indian states are teeming with migrant laborers working to transplant rice paddies. However, the governmentâs swift COVID-19 lockdown measures in late March triggered reverse migration, with an estimated 1 million laborers returning to their home states.
The lack of migrant workers has raised alarms for the labor-dependent rice-wheat farms that feed the nation. Healthy harvests are driven by timely transplanting of rice and, consequently, by the timely sowing of the succeeding wheat crop in rotation.
Without political support for alternative farming practices, crop losses from COVID-19 labor disruptions could reach $1.5 billion and significantly diminish the country’s grain reserves, researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) warned.
Researchers also fear delayed rice transplanting could encourage unsustainable residue burning as farmers rush to clear land in the short window between rice harvest and wheat sowing. Increased burning in the fall will exacerbate the COVID-19 health risk by contributing to the blanket of thick air pollution that covers much of northwest India, including the densely populated capital region of New Delhi.
Both farmers and politicians are showing increased interest in farm mechanization and crop diversification as they respond to COVID-19 disruptions, said M.L. Jat, a CIMMYT scientist who coordinates sustainable intensification programs in northwestern India.
âFarmers know the time of planting wheat is extremely important for productivity. To avoid production losses and smog-inducing residue burning, alternative farm practices and technologies must be scaled up now,â Jat said.
The time it takes to manually transplant rice paddies is a particular worry. Manual transplanting accounts for 95% of rice grown in the northwestern regions. Rice seedlings grown in a nursery are pulled and transplanted into puddled and leveled fields â a process that takes up to 30 person-days per hectare, making it highly dependent on the availability of migrant laborers.
Even before COVID-19, a lack of labor was costing rice-wheat productivity and encouraging burning practices that contribute to Indiaâs air pollution crisis, said CIMMYT scientist Balwinder Singh.
âMechanized sowing and harvesting has been growing in recent years. The COVID-19 labor shortage presents a unique opportunity for policymakers to prioritize productive and environmentally-friendly farming practices as long term solutions,â Singh said.
Sustainable practices to cope with labor bottlenecks
CIMMYT researchers are working with national and state governments to get information and technologies to farmers, however, there are significant challenges to bringing solutions to scale in the very near term, Singh explained.
There is no silver bullet in the short term. However, researchers have outlined immediate and mid-term strategies to ensure crop productivity while avoiding residue burning:
Delayed or staggered nursery sowing of rice:Â By delaying nursery sowing to match delays in transplanting, yield potential can be conserved for rice. Any delay in transplanting rice due to labor shortage can reduce the productivity of seedlings. Seedling age at transplanting is an important factor for optimum growth and yield.
âMatching nursery sowing to meet delayed transplanting dates is an immediate action that farmers can take to ensure crop productivity in the short term. However, itâs important policymakers prioritize technologies, such as direct seeders, that contribute to long term solutions,â Singh said.
Direct drilling of wheat using the Happy Seeder: Direct seeding of wheat into rice residues using the Happy Seeder, a mechanized harvesting combine, can reduce the turnaround time between rice harvest and wheat sowing, potentially eliminating the temptation to burn residues.
âIdentifying the areas with delayed transplanting well in advance should be a priority for effectively targeting the direct drilling of wheat using Happy Seeders,â said Jat. The average farmer who uses the Happy Seeder can generate up to 20% more profits than those who burn their fields, he explained. âIncentivizing farmers through a direct benefit transfer payment to adopt âno burnâ practices may help accelerate transitions.â
Directly sown rice: Timely planting of rice can also be achieved by adopting dry direct seeding of rice using mechanized seed-cum-fertilizer planters. In addition to reducing the labor requirement for crop establishment, dry direct seeding allows earlier rice planting due to its lower water requirement for establishment. Direct-seeded rice also matures earlier than puddled transplanted rice. Thus, earlier harvesting improves the chance to sow wheat on time.
âCIMMYT researchers are working with the local mechanical engineers on rolling out simple tweaks to enable the Happy Seeder to be used for direct rice seeding. The existing availability of Happy Seeders in the region will improve the speed direct rice sowing can be adopted,â Jat said.
Crop diversification with maize: Replacing rice with maize in the monsoon season is another option to alleviate the potential shortage of agricultural labor due to COVID-19, as the practice of establishing maize by machine is already common.
âResearch evidence generated over the past decade demonstrates that maize along with modern agronomic management practices can provide a profitable and sustainable alternative to rice,â Jat explained. âThe diversification of rice with maize can potentially contribute to sustainability that includes conserving groundwater, improving soil health and reducing air pollution through eliminating residue burning.â
Getting innovations into farmersâ fields
Rapid policy decisions by national and state governments on facilitating more mechanized operations in labor-intensive rice-wheat production regions will address labor availability issues while contributing to productivity enhancement of succeeding wheat crop in rotation, as well as overall system sustainability, said ICARâs deputy director general for agricultural extension, AK Singh.
The government is providing advisories to farmers through multiple levels of communications, including extension services, messaging services and farmer collectives to raise awareness and encourage adoption.
Moving toward mechanization and crop diversity should not be viewed as a quick fix to COVID-19 related labor shortages, but as the foundation for long-term policies that help India in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, said ICARâs deputy director general for Natural Research Management, SK Chaudhari.
âPolicies encouraging farming practices that save resources and protect the environment will improve long term productivity of the nation,â he said.
Northwestern India is home to millions of smallholder farmers making it a breadbasket for grain staples. Since giving birth to the Green Revolution, the region has continued to increase its food production through rice and wheat farming providing bulk of food to the country.
This high production has not come without shortfalls, different problems like a lowering water table, scarcity of labor during peak periods, deteriorating soil health, and air pollution from crop residue burning demands some alternative methods to sustain productivity as well as natural resources.
Cover photo:Â A farmer uses a tractor fitted with a Happy Seeder. (Photo: Dakshinamurthy Vedachalam/CIMMYT)
In response to increasing labor scarcity and costs, growth in mechanized wheat and rice harvesting has fueled farm prosperity and entrepreneurial opportunity in the poorest parts of Nepal, researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) have recorded.
Farmers are turning to two-wheeled tractor-mounted reaper-harvesters to make up for the lack of farm labor, caused by a significant number of rural Nepalese â especially men and youth â migrating out in search of employment opportunities.
For Nandalal Oli, a 35-year-old farmer from Bardiya in far-west Nepal, investing in a mechanized reaper not only allowed him to avoid expensive labor costs that have resulted from out-migration from his village, but it also provided a source of income offering wheat and rice harvesting services to his neighbors.
âThe reaper easily attaches on my two-wheel tractor and means I can mechanically cut and lay the wheat and rice harvests,â said Oli, the father of two. âHiring help to harvest by hand is expensive and can take days but with the reaper attachment itâs done in hours, saving time and money.â
Oli was first introduced to the small reaper attachment three years ago at a farmer exhibition hosted by Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), funded through USAID. He saw the reaper as an opportunity to add harvesting to his mechanization business, where he was already using his two-wheel tractor for tilling, planting and transportation services.
Prosperity powers up reaper adoption
Over 4,000 mechanized reapers have been sold in Nepal with more than 50% in far and mid-west Nepal since researchers first introduced the technology five years ago. The successful adoption â which is now led by agricultural machinery dealers that were established or improved with CSISAâs support â has led nearly 24,000 farmers to have regular access to affordable crop harvesting services, said CIMMYT agricultural economist Gokul Paudel.
âReapers improve farm management, adding a new layer of precision farming and reducing grain loss. Compared to manual harvesting mechanized reapers improve farming productivity that has shown to significantly increase average farm profitability when used for harvesting both rice and wheat,â he explained.
Nearly 65% of Nepalâs population works in agriculture, yet this South Asian country struggles to produce an adequate and affordable supply of food. The research indicated increased farm precision through the use of mechanized reapers boosts farm profitability by $120 a year when used for both rice and wheat harvests.
Oli agreed farmers see the benefit of his harvesting service as he has had no trouble finding customers. On an average year he serves 100 wheat and rice farmers in a 15 kilometer radius of his home.
âInvesting in the reaper harvester worked for me. I earn 1,000 NRs [about $8] per hour harvesting fields and was able to pay off the purchase in one season. The added income ensures I can stay on top of bills and pay my childrenâs school fees.â
Farmers who have purchased reapers operate as service providers to other farms in their community, Paudel said.
âThis has the additional benefit of creating legitimate jobs in rural areas, particularly needed among both migrant returnees who are seeking productive uses for earnings gained overseas that, at present, are mostly used for consumptive and unproductive sectors.â
âThis additional work can also contribute to jobs for youth keeping them home rather than migrating,â he said.
The adoption rate of the reaper harvester is projected to reach 68% in the rice-wheat systems in the region within the next three years if current trends continue, significantly increasing access and affordability to the service.
Private and public support for mechanized harvester key to strong adoption
Achieving buy-in from the private and public sector was essential to the successful introduction and uptake of reaper attachments in Nepal, said Scott Justice, an agricultural and rural mechanization expert with the CSISA project.
Off the back of the popularity of the two-wheel tractor for planting and tilling, 22 reaper attachments were introduced by the researchers in 2014. Partnering with government institutions, the researchers facilitated demonstrations led by the private sector in farmersâ fields successfully building farmer demand and market-led supply.
âThe reapers were introduced at the right place, at the right time. While nearly all Terai farmers for years had used tractor-powered threshing services, the region was suffering from labor scarcity or labor spikes where it took 25 people all day to cut one hectare of grain by hand. Farmers were in search of an easier and faster way to cut their grain,â Justice explained.
âEngaging the private and public sector in demonstrating the functionality and benefits of the reaper across different districts sparked rapidly increasing demand among farmers and service providers,â he said.
Early sales of the reaper attachments have mostly been directly to farmers without the need for considerable government subsidy. Much of the success was due to the researchersâ approach engaging multiple private sector suppliers and the Nepal Agricultural Machinery Entrepreneursâ Association (NAMEA) and networks of machinery importers, traders, and dealers to ensure stocks of reapers were available at local level. The resulting competition led to 30-40% reduction in price contributing to increasing sales.
âWith the technical support of researchers through the CSISA project we were able to import reaper attachments and run demonstrations to promote the technology as a sure investment for farmers and rural entrepreneurs,â said Krishna Sharma from Nepal Agricultural Machinery Entrepreneursâ Association (NAMEA).
From 2015, the private sector capitalized on farmersâ interest in mechanized harvesting by importing reapers and running their own demonstrations and several radio jingles and sales continued to increase into the thousands, said Justice.
 Building entrepreneurial capacity along the value chain
Through the CSISA project private dealers and public extension agencies were supported in developing training courses on the use of the reaper and basic business skills to ensure long-term success for farmers and rural entrepreneurs.
Training was essential in encouraging the emergence of mechanized service provision models and the market-based supply and repair chains required to support them, said CIMMYT agricultural mechanization engineer Subash Adhikari.
âBasic operational and business training for farmers who purchased a reaper enabled them to become service providers and successfully increased the access to reaper services and the amount of farms under improved management,â he said.
As commonly occurs when machinery adoption spreads, the availability of spare parts and repairs for reapers lagged behind sales. Researchers facilitated reaper repair training for district sales agent mechanics, as well as providing small grants for spare parts to build the value chain, Adhikari added.
Apart from hire services, mechanization creates additional opportunities for new business with repair and maintenance of equipment, sales and dealership of related businesses including transport and agro-processing along the value chain.
The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) aims to sustainably increase the productivity of cereal based cropping systems to improve food security and farmersâ livelihoods in Nepal. CSISA works with public and private partners to support the widespread adoption of affordable and climate-resilient farming technologies and practices, such as improved varieties of maize, wheat, rice and pulses, and mechanization.
Cover photo: A farmer uses a two-wheel tractor-mounted reaper to harvest wheat in Nepal. (Photo: Timothy J. Krupnik/CIMMYT)
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In 2019, CIMMYT continued to perform groundbreaking crop research and forge powerful partnerships to combat hunger and climate change, preserve maize and wheat biodiversity, and respond to emerging pests and diseases. Â
Bill Gates spoke about the âessential role of CGIAR research centers in feeding our futureâ and together with other stakeholders urged us to âdo even better.â In his Gates Notes blog, he highlighted the great example of CIMMYTâs drought-tolerant maize, which helps resource-poor farmers withstand increasing climate risks.Â
Over the course of the year, we supported our national partners to release 82 maize and 50 wheat varieties. More than 14,000 farmers, scientists, and technical workers across the world took part in over 900 training and capacity development activities. CIMMYT researchers published 386 peer-reviewed journal articles.Â
In 2019, CIMMYT also marked the end of a decade of achievements in seed security. CIMMYT celebrated being the largest depositor at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault with 173,779 accessions from 131 countries. The most recent deposit included 15,231 samples of wheat and 332 samples of maize.Â
Innovative solutions like DNA fingerprinting â a method used to identify individual plants by looking at unique patterns in their genome â brought state of the art research into farmerâs fields, providing valuable insights into the diversity of wheat varieties grown in Afghanistan and Ethiopia.  Â
CIMMYT also continued to play a key role in the battle against fall armyworm, coordinating a global research-for–development consortium to build an evidence-based response against the pest in both Africa and Asia.Â
Through the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), CIMMYT helped women find business opportunities and empowered female entrepreneurship with the help of mechanization solutions.Â
The year 2019 showed us that while CIMMYTâs work may begin with seeds, our innovations support farmers at all stages of the value chain. The year ahead will be a challenging one as we continue to adjust to the ânew normalâ of life under COVID-19. We hope you enjoy this Annual Report as we look back on the exciting year that was 2019.  Â
Read the web version of the Annual Report 2019
In Lennart Wolteringâs first job working on agricultural water management with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Niger, he observed a phenomenon that would influence his career path. Although drip irrigation involved huge benefits in terms of yields and productivity, adoption was low all across Africa. This fact made Woltering frustrated and interested.
In his second job at the biggest management consulting firm of Germany focused on international development, he was awarded a contract by the German development agency GIZ to lead a team on a demand-supply match for innovations from the CGIAR. Here he found that uptake of many innovations that showed superior performance over alternatives was limited and largely confined to the pilot project environment. When a few years later GIZ and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) advertised a Scaling Advisor position, Woltering knew this was the job for him.
Scaling is the process of expanding beneficial technologies and practices over geographies, and across institutions and levels to impact large numbers of people. This sounds very abstract, and Woltering is now supporting colleagues to make sense of the what, why and how of scaling in their specific contexts. The GIZ and CIMMYT contract modality does not force him to work on one project alone, but allows him to support a broad range of projects and programs to achieve more sustainable impact, within and beyond CIMMYT.
Changing mindsets
There is a modus operandi of doing projects in the most efficient way to meet targets, then moving on to the next project. Success is often measured by the number of beneficiaries reached at the last day of that project. However, this is often at the expense of important âsystems workâ such as building lasting relationships, developing organizational capacities and improving the enabling environment rather than finding holes in it. CIMMYT’s mission and vision are focused on social impact, hence the outcomes of our work are more important than our outputs. We cannot assume that adoption of an innovation leads directly to positive impacts â we have the responsibility to abide by the principles of âdo no harmâ and âleave no one behind.â Scaling is a process that should be part of the design of projects from the beginning.
Woltering keeps asking himself, âWhat happens when the project stops tomorrow? Do local actors have the capacities and desire to take responsibility of the scaling process once the project is over? What models of collaboration can survive the project?â He observes a strong underestimation of the importance of context for an innovation to be successful. Wolteringâs guiding principle is â10% is the innovation and 90% is the context.â
The Scaling Scan
The first thing Woltering did at CIMMYT was visit the country offices and projects in Africa and Asia, to understand how colleagues give meaning to scaling and to identify opportunities and challenges. He saw that in every context there was a different bottleneck to scaling â government policies, the value chain, but hardly ever the technology. The common denominator among these situations was that there was always a weakest link. If that problem was solved, teams would encounter the next weakest link. He identified a need to think strategically about project elements from the beginning of the project.
Woltering came across a paper by PPPLab that mentioned ten scaling ingredients, or ten conditions for scaling to be successful. He got in touch with them to see how this could be useful for CIMMYT and the CGIAR. âHow can we make this fluffy concept of scaling that people donât understand into something meaningful?â
This idea became the Scaling Scan, developed by PPPLab and CIMMYT. The tool helps practitioners to analyze what they want to scale, while trying to keep the process as simple as possible. The Scaling Scan helps teams to come up with a realistic ambition and identify bottlenecks from the start. It highlights what project teams need to pay attention to on the journey to reach scale.
âOne thing that immediately becomes clear is that impact at scale requires a much broader range of skills and disciplines than what any one organization can bring. The Scaling Scan and an associated partnership tool we developed helps teams to recognize what type of collaborations are necessary along the way. It is very encouraging to get emails from organizations like Catholic Relief Services and ILRI that they are using the Scaling Scan on their own,â says Woltering.
Progress towards impact
For many decades, CGIAR focused only on research, but in the last 20 years, it expanded to focus on what actually happens with those research outputs.
CIMMYT has always been working on things we now call scaling, in the sense of having a positive impact and changing peopleâs lives for the better. However, how that happened in that specific context has never been integrated systematically in the design, implementation nor the learning. âScaling is finally getting recognized as a science but also as an art, and it is great to work on both fronts with scientists and project managers,â says Woltering.
There is a global community of practice on scaling with donors, implementers and practitioners. Five years ago, there were ten members and now the agriculture working group has members of more than sixty different organizations (including USAID, IFAD, CGIAR, CRS). CIMMYT is not only leading this community, but also set up a CGIAR-wide task force and a CIMMYT internal task force on scaling.
The COVID-19 crisis has shown that we need sustainable change at scale, and short term and one-off solutions will not do. This has only accelerated a trend of funders and implementers shifting to a more systemic approach. âCIMMYT is at the forefront of this wave which makes it a very exciting time to be working on this,â said Woltering.
Smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia have embraced small-scale mechanization thanks to an innovative CIMMYT-led project, which is now drawing to a close. Since 2013, the Farm Mechanization and Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification (FACASI) project has helped farmers access and use two-wheel tractors that significantly reduce the time and labor needed to grow, harvest and process their crops. To ensure long-term sustainability, the project and its partners helped support and develop local enterprises which could supply, service and operate the machines, and encouraged the development of supportive government policies. The project was funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), as well as the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat.
âMechanization is a system not a technologyâ
From its inception, FACASI went beyond simply providing machinery to farmers, and instead envisioned mechanization as a way out of poverty. âMechanization is a system, not only a technology,â said Bisrat Getnet, the projectâs national coordinator in Ethiopia and director of the Agricultural Engineering Research Department at the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research. âMechanization needs infrastructure such as roads, fuel stations, spare part dealerships, maintenance centers, training centers and appropriate policies. This project assessed which measures are needed to sustain a new technology and addressed these with direct interventions,â he explained.
The FACASI project worked to introduce and develop new small-scale machines, including two-wheel tractors, small shellers and threshers, and small pumps, in African rural settings, collaborating with local engineers, farmers and manufacturers. This included adapting a range of attachments that could be used to mechanize on-farm tasks such as planting, harvesting, transporting and shelling. In parallel, the project developed local business opportunities around the supply, maintenance and use of the machines, to ensure that users could access affordable services and equipment in their communities.
The project initially worked in four countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Researchers saw significant potential for mechanization to reduce the labor intensity associated with smallholder farming, while encouraging application of conservation agriculture techniques and developing rural service provision businesses. In its second phase, which began in 2017, the project focused on strengthening its efforts in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia.
âIn my view the most innovative aspect enabling FACASIâs success was the concept of combining engineering and business modelling, with an understanding of the political, legislative and policy situations in the four countries,â said Professor John Blackwell, an Adjunct Professor at Charles Sturt University who reviewed FACASI and also invented and helped commercialize several successful machines in South Asia, including the famous Happy Seeder.
âFACASI has proven that small mechanization is viable in smallholder settings,â said CIMMYT scientist and project coordinator FrĂ©dĂ©ric Baudron. âIt has shown smallholders that they donât have to consolidate their farms to benefit from conventional machines, but that machines can instead be adapted to their farm conditions. This, to me, defines the concept of âappropriate mechanizationâ,â he said.
Benefits to local communities
During its course, the project improved the efficiency and productivity of smallholder farming, reducing labor requirements and creating new pathways for rural women and youth.
The reduction in the labor and drudgery of farming tasks has opened many doors. Farmers can save the costs of hiring additional labor and reinvest that money into their enterprises or households. With a small double-cob sheller producing one ton of kernels in an hour compared to up to 12 days by hand, women can do something else valuable with their time and energy. Entrepreneurs offering mechanization services â often young people who embrace new technologies â can earn a good income while boosting the productivity of local farms.
Mechanization has shown to sustainably improve yields. In Ethiopia, farmers using two-wheel tractors were able to reduce the time needed to establish a wheat crop from about 100 hours per hectare to fewer than 10 hours. In trials, maize and wheat respectively yielded 29% and 22% more on average, compared with using conventional crop establishment methods.
Impacts now and into the future
According to its national partners, FACASI has laid the groundwork for cheap and practical two-wheel tractors to proliferate. In Ethiopia, there are currently 88 service providers whose skills has been directly developed through FACASI project interventions. âThis has been a flagship project,â said Ethiopia national coordinator Bisrat Getnet. âIt tested and validated the potential for small-scale mechanization and conservation agriculture, it proved that new business models could be profitable, and it opened new pathways for Ethiopian agriculture policy,â he said.
In Zimbabwe, the project has also set the wheels of change in motion. âFACASI demonstrated an opportunity for creating employment and business opportunities through small-scale mechanization,â said Tirivangani Koza, of Zimbabweâs Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement. âWith the right funding and policies, there is a very wide and promising scope to scale-up this initiative,â he said.
Read more:
Explore the FACASI Hello Tractor knowledge platform to learn more about conservation agriculture and small-scale mechanization
Cover photo: Demonstration of a minitiller, Naivasha, Kenya. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Using data from 12 communities across four Indian states, an international team of researchers has shed new light on how women are gradually innovating and influencing decision-making in wheat-based systems.
The study, published this month in The European Journal of Development Research, challenges stereotypes of men being the sole decision-makers in wheat-based systems and performing all the work. The authors, which include researchers from the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT)-funded GENNOVATE initiative, show that women adopt specific strategies to further their interests in the context of wheat-based livelihoods.
In parts of India, agriculture has become increasingly feminized in response to rising migration of men from rural areas to cities. An increasing proportion of women, relative to men, are working in the fields. However, little is known about whether these women are actually taking key decisions.
The authors distinguish between high gender gap communities â identified as economically vibrant and highly male-dominant â and low gender gap communities, which are also economically vibrant but where women have a stronger say and more room to maneuver.
The study highlights six strategies women adopt to participate actively in decision-making. These range from less openly challenging strategies that the authors term acquiescence, murmuring, and quiet co-performance (typical of high gender gap communities), to more assertive ones like active consultation, women managing, and finally, women deciding (low gender gap communities).
In acquiescence, for example, women are fully conscious that men do not expect them to take part in agricultural decision-making, but do not articulate any overt forms of resistance.
In quiet co-performance, some middle-income women in high gender gap communities begin to quietly support men’s ability to innovate, for example by helping to finance the innovation, and through carefully nuanced ‘suggestions’ or âadvice.’ They donât openly question that men take decisions in wheat production. Rather, they appear to use male agency to support their personal and household level goals.
In the final strategy, women take all decisions in relation to farming and innovation. Their husbands recognize this process is happening and support it.
âOne important factor in stronger womenâs decision-making capacity is male outmigration. This is a reality in several of the low gender gap villages studiedâand it is a reality in many other communities in India. Another is educationâmany women and their daughters talked about how empowering this is,â said gender researcher and lead-author Cathy Farnworth.
In some communities, the study shows, women and men are adapting by promoting womenâs âmanagerialâ decision-making. However, the study also shows that in most locations the extension services have failed to recognize the new reality of male absence and women decision-makers. This seriously hampers women, and is restricting agricultural progress.
Progressive village heads are critical to progress, too. In some communities, they are inclusive of women but in others, they marginalize women. Input suppliers â including machinery providers â also have a vested interest in supporting women farm managers. Unsurprisingly, without the support of extension services, village heads, and other important local actors, womenâs ability to take effective decisions is reduced.
âThe co-authors, partners at Glasgow Caledonian University and in India, were very important to both obtaining the fieldwork data, and the development of the typologyâ said Lone Badstue, researcher at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and another co-author of the paper.
The new typology will allow researchers and development partners to better understand empowerment dynamics and womenâs agency in agriculture. The authors argue that development partners should support these strategies but must ultimately leave them in the hands of women themselves to manage.
âItâs an exciting study because the typology can be used by anyone to distinguish between the ways women (and men) express their ideas and get to where they wantâ, concluded Farnworth.
Read the full article in The European Journal of Development Research:
From Working in the Fields to Taking Control. Towards a Typology of Women’s Decision-Making in Wheat in India
See more recent publications from CIMMYT researchers:
A common approach toward data structuring is needed to improve access to gender research across agriculture data repositories, a recent report by the CGIAR Platform on Big Data in Agriculture suggests.
Simply adding the keyword âgenderâ in database descriptions will improve the findability of gender agricultural research, which currently is hard to find due to the inconsistent use of keywords and tagging, said the reportâs author Marcelo Tyszler, a (gender) data expert with the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in the Netherlands.
“The data is there. We just can’t find it all! A lack of consistent keywords when tagging research is leading to holes in searches for gender research across CGIAR, the world’s largest network of agricultural researchers,” he says.
âA more systematic and sharper use of keywords when describing datasets will improve findability in searches,â Tyszler states.
As part of the Findability of Gender Datasets report, researchers used a range of keywords, including âgenderâ, âwomenâ and âfemale,â to search repositories for gender-based data across CGIAR agricultural research centers and compared the search results with a reference list of gender datasets provided by scientists. The results showed that a number of the datasets in the reference list were not found using these search terms.
The results uncovered important inconsistencies in the description of gender research, especially in terms of how data is structured and the detail of documentation provided in CGIAR repositories, says co-author Ewen Le Borgne, a KIT gender researcher.
âPoor data management limits the impact of research to be found, read and incorporated into new research projects,â Le Borgne says, invoking the age old saying, âIf a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?â
The researchers used the findings to promote a standardized approach to tagging and describing their research.
âTo improve findability and the impact of data, the gender community should develop a list of commonly agreed keywords that can be used to consistently describe gender research data sets,â Le Borgne explains.
Any dataset containing âsex-disaggregatedâ data should indicate so in the keywords, said Tyszler. This is also important for non-gender researchers, to broaden the scope of their impact.
âBy facilitating the tagging, findability and accessibility of quantitative and qualitative gender data we hope to facilitate mixed methods research by providing opportunities for both qualitative and quantitative researchers to exchange insights and create a stronger dialogue,â he explains.
Moreover, across the CGIAR there is a wealth of gender specific qualitative data collected through focus groups, interviews and other participatory research. As CGIAR continues to advance gender research efforts, big data is unearthing exciting opportunities for understanding and acting on the relationships among gender, agriculture, and rapidly digitizing economies and societies. However, varied approaches to data management is restricting access, thus limiting the impact data can have when other researchers aim to reuse results to gain deeper insights.
Moving beyond the ‘gender’ tag
Not surprisingly, âgenderâ was the most common keyword used to describe data found in the study. Although it is essential for researchers to add the âgenderâ keyword to research descriptions they must also go further in describing what the dataset represents, the researchers indicated.
“‘Gender’ is not precise enough a keyword to find all relevant gender-focused datasets. However, our search shows very few details as to what, about gender, is studied in each project,” says Tyszler.
Studies in other fields, for example nutrition, seem to have much more granularity in the description, with keywords including, nutrient intake, nutrition policy, micronutrient deficiencies, etc. We need a movement like this in gender research, he explained.
Better keywords should be a minimum, but it is also possible to consider the identification of a set of smart âgender metadata fieldsâ. These would be input elements that need to be filled in that could ensure all CGIAR datasets properly assess gender dimensions, which would boost the visibility of gender research.
Working as part of the CGIAR Socio-Economic Data Community of Practice, the gender researchers support the exchange of gender-focused data collection tools, with standardized focus groups and interview questions, to improve the potential for comparing different datasets.
Since 2018, the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture and CGIAR Collaborative Platform for Gender Research have been collaborating out of mutual interest, to identify ways to unlock the big data potential of gender research.
Together they aim to take a much more active role in shaping up how gender data can be better analysed and reveal new insights, said Gideon Kruseman, the lead of the CGIAR Socio-Economic Data Community of Practice.
âWe are promoting a standardized approach by bringing together gender data experts with other socio-economic and even biophysical scientists that may not know how to best engage with gender research and data,â Kruseman explains.
Access the full Findability of Gender Datasets report, which was funded through a 2018 grant to KIT Royal Tropical Institute, by the Community of Practice on Socio-Economic Data with co-funding by the CGIAR Gender Platform.
Cover photo: A woman helps to install a drip irrigation pipe on a farm in Gujarat, India. (Credit: Hamish John Appleby, IWMI)