The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) introduced farmers Kassim Massi and Joyce Makawa to conservation agriculture, along with five other families in their community.
“I have learnt a lot from this experiment. I can see that with crop rotation, mulching and intercropping I get bigger and healthier maize cobs. The right maize spacing, one seed at the time planted in a row, creates a good canopy which preserves the soil moisture in addition to the mulch effect,” Massi explains.
How big do farms need to be to enable farmers to escape poverty by farming alone? And what alternative avenues can lead them to sustainable development? New paper explores how much rural households can benefit from agricultural intensification.
Wheat blast is a fast-acting and devastating fungal disease that threatens food safety and security in tropical areas in South America and South Asia. Directly striking the wheat ear, wheat blast can shrivel and deform the grain in less than a week from the first symptoms, leaving farmers no time to act.
The disease, caused by the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae pathotype triticum (MoT), can spread through infected seeds and survives on crop residues, as well as by spores that can travel long distances in the air.
Magnaporthe oryzae can infect many grasses, including barley, lolium, rice, and wheat, but specific isolates of this pathogen generally infect limited species; that is, wheat isolates infect preferably wheat plants but can use several more cereal and grass species as alternate hosts. The Bangladesh wheat blast isolate is being studied to determine its host range. The Magnaporthe oryzae genome is well-studied but major gaps remain in knowledge about its epidemiology.
The pathogen can infect all aerial wheat plant parts, but maximum damage is done when it infects the wheat ear. It can shrivel and deform the grain in less than a week from first symptoms, leaving farmers no time to act.
Where is wheat blast found?
First officially identified in Brazil in 1985, the disease is widespread in South American wheat fields, affecting as much as 3 million hectares in the early 1990s. It continues to seriously threaten the potential for wheat cropping in the region.
In 2016, wheat blast spread to Bangladesh, which suffered a severe outbreak. It has impacted around 15,000 hectares of land in eight districts, reducing yield on average by as much as 51% in the affected fields.
Wheat-producing countries and presence of wheat blast.
How does blast infect a wheat crop?
Wheat blast spreads through infected seeds, crop residues as well as by spores that can travel long distances in the air.
Blast appears sporadically on wheat and grows well on numerous other plants and crops, so rotations do not control it. The irregular frequency of outbreaks also makes it hard to understand or predict the precise conditions for disease development, or to methodically select resistant wheat lines.
At present blast requires concurrent heat and humidity to develop and is confined to areas with those conditions. However, crop fungi are known to mutate and adapt to new conditions, which should be considered in management efforts.
How can farmers prevent and manage wheat blast?
There are no widely available resistant varieties, and fungicides are expensive and provide only a partial defense. They are also often hard to obtain or use in the regions where blast occurs, and must be applied well before any symptoms appear — a prohibitive expense for many farmers.
The Magnaporthe oryzae fungus is physiologically and genetically complex, so even after more than three decades, scientists do not fully understand how it interacts with wheat or which genes in wheat confer durable resistance.
Researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) are partnering with national researchers and meteorological agencies on ways to work towards solutions to mitigate the threat of wheat blast and increase the resilience of smallholder farmers in the region. Through the USAID-supported Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) and Climate Services for Resilient Development (CSRD) projects, CIMMYT and its partners are developing agronomic methods and early warning systems so farmers can prepare for and reduce the impact of wheat blast.
CIMMYT works in a global collaboration to mitigate the threat of wheat blast, funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT), the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet). Some of the partners who collaborate include the Bangladesh Wheat and Maize Research Institute (BWMRI), Bolivia’s Instituto Nacional de Innovación Agropecuaria y Forestal (INIAF), Kansas State University and the Agricultural Research Service of the US (USDA-ARS).
How big do farms need to be to enable farmers to escape poverty by farming alone? And what alternative avenues can lead them to sustainable development?
These issues were explored in a paper in which we examined how much rural households can benefit from agricultural intensification. In particular we, together with colleagues, looked at the size of smallholder farms and their potential profitability and alternative strategies for support. In sub-Saharan Africa smallholder farms are, on average, smaller than two hectares.
Halima Bibi stands on her field in the district of Malda, West Bengal, India.
In recent years, due to increasing demand and financial advantage, maize is gaining importance as a significant cash crop in West Bengal, India.
Halima Bibi is one of the farmers who embraced the possibilities of the crop. All the hard work she put into maize cultivation paid off when she learnt that she would receive the Krishi Karman Prize, awarded by India’s Ministry of Agriculture, for best maize production for the year 2017-2018. “I couldn’t believe my ears when officials from the state agriculture department told me that I had won the award,” Bibi excitedly shared.
As most other farmers in the district of Malda, Bibi and her husband Zakir Hossain were growing rice in their 10-bigha (3.3-acre) land, but life was still a struggle for the couple and their two children, trying to make ends meet.
Life took a turn for Bibi and her family when she observed field activities of the Sustainable and Resilient Farming Systems Intensification in the Eastern Gangetic Plains (SRFSI) project and she realized the importance of no-till maize cultivation. In 2015, she hired a zero-till multi-crop planter and sowed maize in her land. Since then, there was no looking back.
“When I learnt about the high demand for maize, we started cultivating the crop on half of our land, but gradually shifted to growing maize across our entire 10 bighas,” Bibi said. “The agriculture department helped me a lot.”
Rewarding productivity
Sefaur Rahman, a researcher and assistant director of agriculture in the district of Malda, predicted a dramatic growth in maize cultivation in West Bengal in the coming years, because farmers are now aware of the crop’s increased productivity, profitability and cost efficiency.
Through the SRFSI project, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) have reached out to a large number of smallholder farmers, especially marginalized women, to promote conservation agriculture and other sustainable techniques that make farming more profitable. In West Bengal, the project team has worked in partnership with Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya agricultural university and the West Bengal Department of Agriculture, among others.
In the 2017-18 crop season, Bibi produced 16,800 kg of maize from her land. She initially invested 20,000 rupees ($280) per acre, which led to a net profit of 150,000 rupees ($2,113) in total.
A quick lesson learned, the right decision at the right time, and a lot of hard work led Bibi to win the Krishi Karman Prize. These awards are given to the best performing states for raising the country’s food grain production. Taking to Twitter, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, expressed her satisfaction. “I am happy to share that West Bengal has been selected once again for Krishi Karman Award by Govt. of India for the year 2017-18, primarily for maize production,” she said.
As Bibi’s story confirms, embracing conservation agriculture techniques is the way to reap maximum benefits and profits from the farm. In this case, the zero-till cultivation of maize paved a new road towards self-sufficiency and sustainability for the farmers of West Bengal.
CIMMYT study finds that women are 33% more likely to pay for blue maize tortillas and men are 19% more likely. A person’s income had no impact on the willingness to pay more for blue maize.
Kassim Massi and Joyce Makawa have learned how conservation agriculture nurtures the soil of their 2.5-acres farm in Lemu, Malawi, and helps them to better cope with regular dry spells and storm rains. With four children and two grandchildren, their livelihoods depend on rainfed crop farming, in particular maize, the main staple in Malawi, and a few goats and free-range poultry. The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) introduced them to conservation agriculture, along with five other families in their community.
“I have learnt a lot from this experiment. I can see that with crop rotation, mulching and intercropping I get bigger and healthier maize cobs. The right maize spacing, one seed at the time planted in a row, creates a good canopy which preserves the soil moisture in addition to the mulch effect,” Massi explains. “The mulch also helps to limit water runoff when there are heavy rains. I don’t see the streams of mud flowing out of this plot like for my other field where I only planted maize as usual on ridges,” he adds.
Massi and Makawa started small, on a quarter acre, testing maize and maize-pigeon pea intercropping under conservation agriculture. Later they diversified to a maize-groundnut rotation with pigeon pea alleys, while introducing different drought-tolerant maize varieties on their plot. Pigeon pea and groundnut are legume crops that enrich the soil in nitrogen via nodules that host specific bacteria called rhizobia in their root systems. Massi and Makawa also put layers of maize stalks and groundnut haulms on the ground after harvest, creating a mulch that not only enriches the soil in organic matter but retains soil moisture and improves soil structure.
While they got only two bags of 50kg maize grain from their conventionally tilled maize field, they harvested almost three times more maize grain plus three bags of groundnuts, and two and half bags of pigeonpea from the 0.1 hectares grown under conservation agriculture. “This plot has become our food insurance and we plan to expand it.”
Family farmers Kassim Massi and Joyce Makawa in Lemu, Malawi. (Photo: Shiela Chikulo/CIMMYT)
Good for the soil and good for the farmer
“Building healthy soils over the years is one of the great impacts of conservation agriculture,” explains Christian Thierfelder, an agronomist with CIMMYT in Zimbabwe. “With no tillage, legume rotation or intercropping and crop residue management, a beneficial soil pore structure is developed over time. This enables water to infiltrate into the soil where it is available for plant growth in times of drought or during in-season dry spells.”
Under the GIZ-funded Out scaling climate-smart technologies to smallholder farmers in Malawi, Zambia & Zimbabwe initiative, the different ecosystem services that soils bring have been measured against the typical ploughed maize monocropping system. Fifteen year-long experiments show that 48.5mm more water infiltrates per hour under no-till as compared with the conventional method. Soil erosion is reduced by 64% for ripline-seeded maize with legume intercropping. At the Henderson Research station in Zimbabwe where soil erosion loss has been quantified, it means 90 metric tons per hectare of topsoil saved over twelve years.
“Conservation agriculture is good for the soil, and it is good for the farmer. The maize-legume intercropping under conservation agriculture provides very good financial return to labor and investment in most rural communities we worked with,” Thierfelder notes.
Climate mitigation or resilience?
There is growing recognition of the importance of soils in our quest for sustainability.
Soils play for instance an important role in climate regulation. Plants fix carbon dioxide (CO2) through photosynthesis and when those plants die and decompose, the living organisms of the soil, such as bacteria, fungi or earthworms, transform them into organic matter. That way, soils capture huge quantities of the carbon emissions that fuel climate change. This soil organic carbon is also essential for our food security because it retains water, and soil nutrients, essential for growing crops.
The quantity of carbon soils capture depends on the way farmers grow their crops. Conservation agriculture improves soil biodiversity and carbon sequestration by retaining crop residues as mulch, compared to conventional practices.
“Research shows that practices such as conservation agriculture can restore soil organic carbon at the level of four per thousand when farmers apply all principles of conservation agriculture: no-till, soil cover and crop diversification,” explains Marc Corbeels, agronomist seconded to CIMMYT from Cirad. Increasing soil organic content stocks globally by 0.4% per year is the objective of the “4 per 1000” initiative as a way to mitigate climate change and improve food security. At global level, sequestrating 0.4% more soil organic carbon annually combined with stopping deforestation would counteract the annual rise in atmospheric CO2.
“The overall soil organic carbon sequestration potential of conservation agriculture should however not be overestimated,” Corbeels warns. “Carbon sequestration is complex and context-specific. It depends for instance on the type of soils and the initial soil organic status, and the crop and biomass productivity as enough crop residues should be produced.”
“Now farmers in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe are facing prolonged drought and, in some parts, farming communities got hit by flash floods. With degraded and barren soils in this tropical environment, it is a disaster. In my experience, more than mitigation, improved climate resilience is a bigger benefit of conservation agriculture for the farmers”, Corbeels says.
“Science is important to build up solid evidence of the benefits of a healthy soil and push forward much-needed policy interventions to incentivize soil conservation,” Thierfelder states.
Scaling out conservation agriculture practices is what has driven him over the past decade in southern Africa.
“One big lesson I learnt from my years of research with farmers is that if you treat well your soil, your soil will treat you well. Conservation agriculture adopters like Kassim Massi and his family are more resilient to these successive shocks. We need more farmers like them to achieve greater food security and climate resilience in the region,” he concludes.
December 5, we are celebrating World Soil Day under the theme “Stop Soil Erosion, Save our Future!” As CIMMYT’s research shows, farmers cannot deliver sustainable food security without healthy soils, as the farming land producing our staple crops provide important environmental services as well. CIMMYT calls for soil-smart agriculture and food systems.
More than 11,000 scientists signed on to a recent report showing that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency and the United Nations warned that the world is on course for a 3.2 degree spike by 2100, even if 2015 Paris Agreement commitments are met.
Agriculture, forestry, and land-use change are implicated in roughly a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Agriculture also offers opportunities to mitigate climate change and to help farmers — particularly smallholders in developing and emerging economies who have been hardest hit by hot weather and reduced, more erratic rainfall.
Most of CIMMYT’s work relates to climate change, helping farmers adapt to shocks while meeting the rising demand for food and, where possible, reducing emissions.
Family farmer Geofrey Kurgat (center) with his mother Elice Tole (left) and his nephew Ronny Kiprotich in their 1-acre field of Korongo wheat near Belbur, Nukuru, Kenya. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
Climate-resilient crops and farming practices
53 million people are benefiting from drought-tolerant maize. Drought-tolerant maize varieties developed using conventional breeding provide at least 25% more grain than other varieties in dry conditions in sub-Saharan Africa — this represents as much as 1 ton per hectare more grain on average. These varieties are now grown on nearly 2.5 million hectares, benefiting an estimated 6 million households or 53 million people in the continent. One study shows that drought-tolerant maize can provide farming families in Zimbabwe an extra 9 months of food at no additional cost. The greatest productivity results when these varieties are used with reduced or zero tillage and keeping crop residues on the soil, as was demonstrated in southern Africa during the 2015-16 El Niño drought. Finally, tolerance in maize to high temperatures in combination with drought tolerance has a benefit at least twice that of either trait alone.
Wheat yields rise in difficult environments. Nearly two decades of data from 740 locations in more than 60 countries shows that CIMMYT breeding is pushing up wheat yields by almost 2% each year — that’s some 38 kilograms per hectare more annually over almost 20 years — under dry or otherwise challenging conditions. This is partly through use of drought-tolerant lines and crosses with wild grasses that boost wheat’s resilience. An international consortium is applying cutting-edge science to develop climate-resilient wheat. Three widely-adopted heat and drought-tolerant wheat lines from this work are helping farmers in Pakistan, a wheat powerhouse facing rising temperatures and drier conditions; the most popular was grown on an estimated 40,000 hectares in 2018.
Climate-smart soil and fertilizer management. Rice-wheat rotations are the predominant farming system on more than 13 million hectares in the Indo-Gangetic Plains of South Asia, providing food and livelihoods for hundreds of millions. If farmers in India alone fine-tuned crop fertilizer dosages using available technologies such as cellphones and photosynthesis sensors, each year they could produce nearly 14 million tons more grain, save 1.4 million tons of fertilizer, and cut CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions by 5.3 million tons. Scientists have been studying and widely promoting such practices, as well as the use of direct seeding without tillage and keeping crop residues on the soil, farming methods that help capture and hold carbon and can save up to a ton of CO2 emissions per hectare, each crop cycle. Informed by CIMMYT researchers, India state officials seeking to reduce seasonal pollution in New Delhi and other cities have implemented policy measures to curb the burning of rice straw in northern India through widespread use of zero tillage.
Farmers going home for breakfast in Motoko district, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
Measuring climate change impacts and savings
In a landmark study involving CIMMYT wheat physiologists and underlining nutritional impacts of climate change, it was found that increased atmospheric CO2 reduces wheat grain protein content. Given wheat’s role as a key source of protein in the diets of millions of the poor, the results show the need for breeding and other measures to address this effect.
CIMMYT scientists are devising approaches to gauge organic carbon stocks in soils. The stored carbon improves soil resilience and fertility and reduces its emissions of greenhouse gases. Their research also provides the basis for a new global soil information system and to assess the effectiveness of resource-conserving crop management practices.
CIMMYT scientist Francisco Pinto operates a drone over wheat plots at CIMMYT’s experimental station in Ciudad Obregon, Mexico. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)
Managing pests and diseases
Rising temperatures and shifting precipitation are causing the emergence and spread of deadly new crop diseases and insect pests. Research partners worldwide are helping farmers to gain an upper hand by monitoring and sharing information about pathogen and pest movements, by spreading control measures and fostering timely access to fungicides and pesticides, and by developing maize and wheat varieties that feature genetic resistance to these organisms.
Viruses and moth larvae assail maize. Rapid and coordinated action among public and private institutions across sub-Saharan Africa has averted a food security disaster by containing the spread of maize lethal necrosis, a viral disease which appeared in Kenya in 2011 and quickly moved to maize fields regionwide. Measures have included capacity development with seed companies, extension workers, and farmers the development of new disease-resilient maize hybrids.
The insect known as fall armyworm hit Africa in 2016, quickly ranged across nearly all the continent’s maize lands and is now spreading in Asia. Regional and international consortia are combating the pest with guidance on integrated pest management, organized trainings and videos to support smallholder farmers, and breeding maize varieties that can at least partly resist fall armyworm.
New fungal diseases threaten world wheat harvests. The Ug99 race of wheat stem rust emerged in eastern Africa in the late 1990s and spawned 13 new strains that eventually appeared in 13 countries of Africa and beyond. Adding to wheat’s adversity, a devastating malady from the Americas known as “wheat blast” suddenly appeared in Bangladesh in 2016, causing wheat crop losses as high as 30% on a large area and threatening to move quickly throughout South Asia’s vast wheat lands.
A community volunteer of an agricultural cooperative (left) uses the Plantix smartphone app to help a farmer diagnose pests in his maize field in Bardiya district, Nepal. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)
Partners and funders of CIMMYT’s climate research
A global leader in publicly-funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems, CIMMYT is a member of CGIAR and leads the South Asia Regional Program of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).
CIMMYT receives support for research relating to climate change from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies. Top funders include CGIAR Research Programs and Platforms, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Mexico’s Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Development (SADER), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), Cornell University, the German aid agency GIZ, the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), and CGIAR Trust Fund Contributors to Window 1 &2.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change estimates that temperatures in Africa are set to rise significantly in coming years, with devastating results for farmers. Some regions could experience two droughts every five years, and see drastic reductions in maize yields over the next three decades.
Research demonstrates that climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is good method of mitigating the effects of climate change, for both farmers and the planet. Associated practices, which increase soil moisture levels and soil biodiversity have been shown to decrease soil erosion by up to 64%. They also have the potential to increase maize yields by 136% and incomes in dry environments by more than twice as much.
However, adoption rates remain low in some of the countries which stand to benefit the most, such as Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, where the adoption of complete conservation agriculture systems is currently at 2.5%.
A new series of infographics describes some of the farming constraints will have to be addressed in order to scale climate-smart agricultural practices successfully in the region, taking into account both benefits and challenges for farmers.
Kindie Tesfaye is a Senior Scientist based in Ethiopia. He has more than 15 years of experience in executing and managing climate, crop modeling and GIS related projects for agricultural research and development in developing countries.
During his time at CIMMYT, he has developed a system of data acquisition and quality control for climate, crop modeling and geospatial analysis. He has applied systems analysis, cropping systems modeling and geospatial analysis tools for yield gap analysis, targeting of climate smart technologies and climate change studies across different scales. In collaboration with partners, he has also developed a digital agro-climate advisory system that provides decision support to smallholder farmers.
Pramod Aggarwal leads the South Asia Regional Program for the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).
He earned his post-doctoral degree at the International Rice Research Institute, Philippines, and holds two doctoral degrees from the University of Indore, India, and from Wageningen University-Netherlands. He was awarded Academy of Sciences for the Developing World’s Ernesto Illy Trieste Science Prize in 2009, and the Indian National Science Academy’s Young Scientist Medal in 1983.
His professional research focuses on crop growth models for tropical environments, impact assessment of climatic variability and climate change on crops, and adaptation strategies and mitigation options, among other topics.
A farmers group stands for a photograph at a demonstration plot of drought-tolerant (DT) maize in the village of Lobu Koromo, in Ethiopia’s Hawassa Zuria district. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)
Farming systems are moving targets. Agricultural Research and Development (R&D) must understand where they come from and where they are going to offer solutions that are adapted. This is one of the main objectives of the Trajectories and Trade-offs for Intensification of Cereal-based systems (ATTIC), project funded by the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) and implemented by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Farming System Ecology group at Wageningen University & Research.
A recent study led by Yodit Kebede — who obtained her PhD last year under the ATTIC project — examined the drivers of change affecting smallholder farming in southern Ethiopia, farmer’s responses to these changes, and consequences for agricultural landscapes.
As in many parts of the developing world, small farms in southern Ethiopia have become smaller. Population increase and urban expansion have been major drivers of this change. Population has been increasing over 3% annually in Ethiopia, the second most populated country in Africa. Grazing areas and forests were converted to cropland, putting stress on the availability of livestock feed and fuelwood.
Farmers responded to these changes through three broad trajectories: diversification — mixed cropping and intercropping, particularly for the smallest farms —, specialization — often in high-value but non-food crops — and consolidation — maintenance or increase of farm area. Each of these trajectories has its own specific R&D needs, although farms following a consolidation trajectory are often favored by R&D programs. The same three trajectories can be identified in many rural areas where rural transformation has not taken place yet, in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world.
The loss of grassland and forest produced a landscape more susceptible to erosion and loss of soil fertility. However, all outcomes from these landscape changes may not be negative. Another study conducted by the same authors in the same study area demonstrated that an increasingly fragmented agricultural landscape may lead to increased pest control by natural enemies.
While aiming to mitigate against negative outcomes from landscape changes — for example, land degradation — policies should be careful not to inadvertently reduce some of the positive outcomes of these changes, such as increased pest control. As concluded by the study, “a better understanding of interlinkages and tradeoffs among ecosystem services and the spatial scales at which the services are generated, used, and interact is needed in order to successfully inform future land use policies”.
Judith Thomson, agrodealer in Mbalizi, Mbeya district, Tanzania. (Photo: Owekisha Kwigizile)
Many Tanzanian smallholder farmers fail to produce even 1 ton of maize grain per hectare. To improve crop yields, a farmer needs the right seeds and complementary inputs, including inorganic fertilizer. The “right” inputs will depend upon what his or her geographical location and farming system are. How many farmers have access to such inputs and advice? What is the distribution of agrodealers in rural areas? What do they stock, and at what prices?
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) recently carried out a survey of agrodealers in Uganda and Tanzania to answer such questions related to the last-mile delivery of seeds and other agronomic inputs.
This is a joint initiative from two projects — Taking Maize Agronomy to Scale in Africa (TAMASA) and Strengthening product profile-based maize breeding and varietal turnover in Eastern and Southern Africa — funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID.
For the study, CIMMYT teams interviewed 233 agrodealers in Uganda and 299 agrodealers in Tanzania. The survey started in September 2019, just before the main maize planting season, and covered five districts in each country, in both easy-to-reach and remote areas.
For maize seed, researchers looked at which varieties are available at the agrodealer and how do they decide on what to stock.
Agrodealers were also asked to report the key selling attribute of the different varieties they had in store whether it was yield, drought tolerance, maturity level or another marketing characteristic like pricing or packaging. Such information will give some better insights for CIMMYT’s maize breeding team about perceived differences along the seed value chain on key attributes and product profiles.
For example, a new variety in Uganda that was tolerant to maize lethal necrosis (MLN), was mainly promoted as a double cobber and not as MLN tolerant. And unlike in Uganda, there was no “cheap variety” option available in Tanzania, according to the agrodealers interviewed for the study, although high seed prices were often mentioned as the main barrier for seed purchases.
Better understanding how retailers select their varieties could help improve varietal turnover, a key indicator of how fast CIMMYT’s research reaches out farmers.
Besides their own role, it is also interesting to see how agrodealers perceive external challenges to influence farmer adoption of improved varieties. In Uganda, agrodealers saw counterfeit seed and government free seed distributions to farmers as the main challenges for their business, issues that were not frequently mentioned in Tanzania.
Understanding input market characteristics
Enumerator Mary Mdache (left) interviews Shangwe Stephano, staff of BAYDA agrovet shop in Haydom town, Mbulu district, Tanzania. (Photo: Furaha Joseph)
The use of fertilizer is very low in sub-Saharan Africa, around 8-12 kg per hectare, twenty times less than Western standards. Fertilizer access and affordability have been cited as key factors in the low rates of uptake.
The study may shed some new light on this, as it looks at what types of fertilizer is available to farmers at agrodealer shops, and what drives sale and prices. Researchers will examine whether there is a competition effect and how transport costs or subsidies impede the growth of the fertilizer market.
Georeferencing of interviewed agrodealers and farmer population mapping will help reveal the degree to which agrodealers are concentrated in particular areas, leaving other areas with relatively little local access to inputs. Project researchers will investigate how marketing conditions vary across such situation, examining, for instance, how input pricing strategies, selection and quality varies spatially. The team will also use data collected on fertilizer prices to further refine regional fertilizer profitability maps.
Such mapping exercises could help improve the relevance of extension advice. As an example, to tackle acid soils or phosphorus deficiency, could farmers find the recommended input, lime or appropriate P fertilizer at the right time and right price, so that it is profitable for them?
The detailed results of the study are expected in early 2020 to guide agronomic investments and policies for more functional input markets that drive a much-needed sustainable intensification of African smallholder agriculture.
Geoffrey Ochieng’, a smallholder farmer from northern Uganda. He plants the UH5051 variety on his land. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Zambia’s vice-president has recently called to reduce maize dominance and increase crop and diet diversification in his country. The reality is that maize is and will remain a very important food crop for many eastern and southern African countries. Diet preferences and population growth mean that it is imperative to find solutions to increase maize production in these countries, but experts forecast 10 to 30% reduction in maize yields by 2030 in a business-as-usual scenario, with projected temperature increases of up to 2.7 degrees by 2050 and important drought risks.
Knowing the importance of maize for the food security of countries like Zambia, it is crucial to help maize farmers get better and more stable yields under erratic and challenging climate conditions.
To address this, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and its partners have been developing hundreds of new maize varieties with good drought tolerance across sub-Saharan Africa. Stakeholders in the public research and African seed sectors have collaborated through the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project and the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) initiative to develop drought-tolerant seed that also incorporates other qualities, such as nutritional value and disease resistance.
A groundbreaking impact study six years ago demonstrated that drought-tolerant maize significantly reduced poverty and food insecurity, particularly in drought years.
A new study from CIMMYT and the Center for Development Research (ZEF) in the main maize growing areas of Zambia confirms that adopting drought-tolerant maize can increase yields by 38% and reduce the risks of crop failure by 36%.
Over three quarters of the rainfed farmers in the study experienced drought during the survey. These farming families of 6 or 7 people were cultivating 4 hectares of farmland on average, half planted with maize.
A balancing act between potential gains and climate risks
Drought-tolerant maize has a transformational effect. With maize farming becoming less risky, farmers are willing to invest more in fertilizer and other inputs and plant more maize.
However, taking the decision of adopting new farm technologies in a climate risky environment could be a daunting task. Farmers may potentially gain a lot but, at the same time, they must consider downside risks.
As Gertrude Banda, a lead farmer in eastern Zambia, put it, hybrid seeds have a cost and when you do not know whether rains will be enough “this is a gamble.” In addition to climate uncertainty, farmers worry about many other woes, like putting money aside for urgent healthcare, school fees, or cooking nutritious meals for the family.
Information is power
An additional hurdle to adoption is that farmers may not know all the options available to cope with climate risks. While 77% of Zambia households interviewed said they experienced drought in 2015, only 44% knew about drought-tolerant maize.
This inequal access to knowledge and better seeds, observed also in Uganda, slows adoption of drought-tolerant maize. There, 14% of farmers have adopted drought-tolerant maize varieties. If all farmers were aware of this technology, 8% more farmers would have adopted it.
Because farmers are used to paying for cheap open-pollinated varieties, they are only willing to pay half of the hybrid market price, even though new hybrids are performing very well. Awareness campaigns on the benefits of drought-tolerant maize could boost adoption among farmers.
According to the same study, the potential for scaling drought-tolerant maize could raise up to 47% if drought-tolerant varieties were made available at affordable prices at all agrodealers. Several approaches could be tested to increase access, such as input credit or subsidy schemes.
These impact studies were made possible through the support provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), funders of the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) initiative.
An international team of scientists is working with farmers in the Yaqui Valley, in Mexico’s Sonora state, to develop and test a new mobile technology that aims to improve wheat and sugarcane productivity by helping farmers manage factors that cause the yield gap between crop potential and actual field performance.
Scientists have been developing and testing a smartphone app where farmers can record their farming activities — including sowing date, crop type and irrigation — and receive local, precise crop management advice in return.
This project is a private-public partnership known as Mexican COMPASS, or Mexican Crop Observation, Management & Production Analysis Services System.
Research has shown that proper timing of irrigation is more important to yields than total water amounts. Earlier planting times have also been shown to improve wheat yields. Having optimum dates for both activities could help farmers improve yields and stabilize their incomes.
The COMPASS smartphone app uses earth observation satellite data and in-situ field data captured by farmers to provide information such as optimum sowing date and irrigation scheduling.
“Sowing and irrigation timing are well known drivers of yield potential in that region — these are two features of the app we’re about to validate during this next season,” explained Francelino Rodrigues, Precision Agriculture Scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Sound data
Technological innovation for crop productivity is needed now more than ever with threats to food security increasing and natural resources becoming scarcer. Farmers are under increasing pressure to produce more with less, which means greater precision is needed in their agricultural practices.
The Yaqui Valley, Mexico’s biggest wheat producing area, is located in the semi-arid Sonoran Desert in the northern part of Mexico. Water security is a serious challenge and farmers must be very precise in their irrigation management.
The Mexican COMPASS consortium, which is made up of the geospatial data analytics company Rezatec, the University of Nottingham, Booker Tate, CIMMYT and the Colegio de Postgraduados (COLPOS) in Mexico, evolved as a way to help Mexican farmers improve their water use efficiency.
“Yaqui Valley farmers are very experienced farmers, however they can also benefit by using an app that is designed locally to inform and record their decisions,” Rodrigues explained.
The smartphone app will also allow farmers to record and schedule their crop management practices and will give them access to weekly time-series Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) maps, that will allow farmers to view their fields at any time from any location.
“All of this information is provided for free! That’s the exciting part of the project. The business model was designed so that farmers will not need to pay for access to the app and its features, in exchange for providing their crop field data. It’s a win-win situation,” said Rodrigues.
CIMMYT research assistant Lorena Gonzalez (center) helps local farmers try out the new COMPASS app during the workshop in Ciudad Obregon, Sonora state, Mexico. (Photo: Alison Doody/CIMMYT)
Farmer-centered design
The app is now in the validation stage and COMPASS partners are inviting farmers to test the technology on their own farms. A workshop on October 21 in Ciudad Obregon provided farmers with hands-on training for the app and allowed them to give their feedback.
Over 100 farmers attended the workshop, which featured presentations from Saravana Gurusamy, project manager at Rezatec, Iván Ortíz-Monasterio, principal scientist at CIMMYT, and representatives from local farmer groups Asociación de Organismos de Agricultores del Sur de Sonora (AOASS) and Distrito de Riego del Río Yaqui (DRRYAQUI). The workshop featured a step-by-step demonstration of the app and practical exercises for farmers to test it out for themselves.
“We need technology nowadays because we have to deal with many factors. The profit we get for wheat is getting smaller and smaller each year, so we have to be very productive. I hope that this app can help me to produce a better crop,” said one local wheat farmer who attended the workshop.
User feedback has played a key role in the development of the app. COMPASS interviewed dozens of farmers to see what design worked for them.
“Initially we came up with a really complicated design. However, when we gave it to farmers, they didn’t know how to use it,” explained Rezatec project manager, Saravana Gurusamy. The team went back to the drawing board and with the feedback they received from farmers, came up with a simple design that any farmer, regardless of their experience with technology or digital literacy, could use.
A farmer who attended the workshop talks about his experience and the potential benefits of the app. See full video on YouTube.
Sitting down with Gurusamy after the workshop, he outlined his vision for the future of the app.
“My vision is to see all the farmers in Sonora, working in wheat using the app. The first step is to prove the technology here, then roll it out to all of Mexico and eventually internationally.”
Mexican COMPASS is a four year project funded by the UK Space Agency’s International Partnership Programme (IPP-UKSA) and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT). It is a collaboration between Rezatec, the University of Nottingham and Booker Tatein the UK,and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Colegio de Postgraduados (COLPOS) in Mexico.
Climate mitigation or resilience? 
“Science is important to build up solid evidence of the benefits of a healthy soil and push forward much-needed policy interventions to incentivize soil conservation,” Thierfelder states.
