Ethiopia is the second largest wheat grower in Africa and has high levels of demand for the crop. Shortages of grains, cereals and agricultural inputs such as fertilizer caused by the Russia-Ukraine conflict are leading the Ethiopian government to focus heavily on increasing the country’s productivity to rely less on imports.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed recently launched national exports of wheat/ “We have made Ethiopia’s wheat export dream a reality,” he said.
Yahaya highlighted the role of CIMMYT in improving Ethiopia’s wheat production; around 70 percent of varieties grown in the country come from the organization’s germplasm. He also praised Ethiopia’s tax free imports on agricultural machineries and strong extension system, saying that other countries could learn from the success of these initiatives.
The interview took place at a working group on mechanization organized by the Green Innovation Centers (GIC) and CIMMYT to promote the use of machinery in agriculture.
Women’s representative test drives a two-wheel tractor at a seed fair, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Tawanda Hove/CIMMYT)
The two-wheel tractor has been a life changer for Ranganai Muzorori.
At a recent seed and mechanization fair in Zimbabwe, the maize farmer, who purchased the tractor on a lease-to-own basis, said he now enjoys bigger earnings.
Not only has he realized a significant change in his income due to the tractor, he no longer has to struggle to shell maize because he now has access to a machine that strips the corn off the cob.
In a day I can shell about 10 tons, which is helpful for saving precious time, Muzorori said.
Land preparation is also less arduous. “We no longer rely on animal draft power or our own manual labor, but the tractor,” he added.
Due to the versatility of the tractor, which has multiple attachments depending on the task that needs to be done, he has also secured a formal annual contract with Great Zimbabwe Hotel in the southeastern city of Masvingo. He attaches a trailer to the tractor to collect garbage and transport it to the dump, diversifying his income beyond conventional on-farm earnings.
Before the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), in partnership with Zimbabwe’s government extension arm Agritex (Department of Agricultural, Technical and Extension Services), introduced low-cost tractors and small engine-operated farm machinery, such innovations were just a dream for many farmers in Zimbabwe who could not afford to pay $30,000 USD.
“We need to move with the times, the days of relying on either draft power or manual labor should be a thing of the past,” said Caleb Mnkandla, an Agritex supervisor. “With more exposure forums for farmers like this, we can accelerate the adoption of mechanized agriculture even at a smallholder farmer level.”
Improved mechanized tools are also now available to smallholder farmers.
Increased efficiency lightens load
A recent surge of January and tickborne diseases, which affect livestock, added to difficulties faced by many communal farmers due to draft-power shortages during land preparation and planting seasons.
This has translated to reduced yields for many farmers as the timing and efficiency of land preparation and planting has a direct impact on crop yields.
Other farmers in Masvingo are also seeing the transformative capabilities of such mechanization, as reflected in testimonials during the R4 Rural Resilience and ZAMBUKO seed and mechanization fair held in October.
The project – funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), and the World Food Programme (WFP) – is intended to reduce the arduous manual labor associated with the use of hand operated ploughs and tools.
“Smallholder production systems in Africa have been heavily comprised of intense drudgery which makes farming less attractive for youth and difficult for women,” said Abdul Matin, a lead scientist with CIMMYT. “The new mechanization technologies we are bringing in are meant to reduce drudgery and cost, and add increased efficiencies to smallholder farmer operations.”
Private sector partners demonstrate the multi-functionality of two-wheel tractors. (Photo: Tawanda Hove/CIMMYT)
Greater accessibility through financing
In a joint collaboration, Agritex and CIMMYT provide an innovative financial scheme under which service providers pay a commitment fee of $500 USD to access the machinery. They then receive a grace period of four months and pay instalments of $100 USD a month for 20 months. The project covers half of the machinery cost as risk sharing.
So far, there are 34 service providers participating in Masvingo, offering mechanization services to smallholder farming communities for a fee. The project is a scalable pilot for the rest of the country.
The service provider model puts the focus on the asset owners, who not only enjoy the benefits of the mechanization, but also offer services to surrounding farming communities which causes exponential impact, Matin said.
The package of services farmers have been accessing include tillage, transportation, shelling and threshing services.
Tractors can be used for transportation year round, providing steady income for service providers.
The fair provides a platform to demonstrate and showcase the impact of the new technology to farmers, said Pamela Chirwa, project coordinator for CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program in the Southern Africa Regional Office located in Zimbabwe, who coordinated the event.
“We need to continuously expose farmers to other farmers who have moved on to mechanized production,” she said. “Such farmer-to-farmer extension makes it easier for others to adopt technology as they relate to each other better.”
“Adopting improved maize seed varieties alongside two-wheel tractors and other machinery will also improve capacity and potential earnings,” said Christian Thierfelder, a principal scientist with CIMMYT, addressing farmers in Masvingo, emphasizing that for conservation agriculture, mechanized equipment is a labor-saving technology.
Wheat is a strategically important crop for Afghanistan because as a major source of nutrition — accounting for up to 60% of a family’s daily caloric intake — it is linked directly to national food security. However, despite occupying over 2.5 million hectares of arable land across the country, Afghanistan does not currently produce enough wheat to meet the needs of a growing population. On average, annual production is estimated at around 5 million metric tons — 2 million metric tons less than needed — and as a result Afghanistan makes up this significant shortfall by importing wheat flour from neighboring countries where wheat productivity is significantly higher.
There is tremendous potential to increase national wheat productivity by introducing improved agronomic practices and making use of suitable farming technologies. However, given Afghanistan’s vast agro-ecological diversity, it is essential that best practices are recommended based on local conditions, as these vary greatly across the country.
Take seeding, for instance. Sowing wheat seed at the optimum time has been shown to help maximize yields and significant research has been undertaken to determine the optimal sowing dates for winter and spring wheat in different areas. These times are governed not only by environmental requirements and growing cycles, but also by the need to avoid certain diseases and insect pests, which may be more prevalent at specific times of year.
But these can vary widely even within a season. For example, research shows that the best time to sow irrigated winter wheat in Afghanistan’s hot and arid western provinces is from the second week of October up until the end of the month. However, the optimum window falls one month later in the more mountainous and forested provinces of the East, and even later for rain-fed wheat.
The same distinctions apply to seeding and fertilizer application rates, which can vary subtly between similar regions. Consider that the optimum seed rate for irrigated wheat sown using the broadcast method is the same in both the Northern and Central zones, 25-30 kilograms per jerib (approx. half an acre). One might expect the optimum rates for row cultivation to match, but in fact they differ by two kilograms. This might not seem like much, but given how significantly seed density and spacing influence crop yield and quality, these figures are vital knowledge for farmers looking to maximize their yield potential.
To help disseminate these research-based recommendations to farmers and local agricultural extension staff, researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) have partnered with Afghanistan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock, Michigan State University’s Global Center for Food Systems Innovation and the USAID to compile four new booklets featuring zone-specific advice for irrigated and rain-fed systems in each of Afghanistan’s main agro-ecological zones.
Covering between four and ten provinces each, these guides include localized recommendations for the best sowing dates, nutrient management, weed management, and best practices in irrigation, arming wheat farmers with the key information they need to effectively increase production in their area and support the country’s wider food security needs.
More information is available in the booklets below:
Cover photo: The optimal time for wheat sowing in Afghanistan varies by region according to the country’s vast agro-ecological diversity. CIMMYT recommends a localized approach. (Photo: Rajiv Sharma/CIMMYT)
Despite women’s essential role in agrifood systems, their contribution can be overlooked, with resources instead targeted towards their male counterparts.
However, advancements in technology now allow scientists to generate rich datasets that can aid analysis of the situational factors impacting women farmers’ participation in extension training services.
These developments have enabled scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Michigan State University, and Agricultural Advisory Society, a local NGO, to understand barriers to access and recommend improvements that will benefit women in Bangladesh.
Using a large dataset of 131,073 farmers in Bangladesh, researchers worked to identify ways to tackle gender exclusion in extension training. Scientists used machine learning to understand preferences according to gender and applied optimization theory and identified actionable ways to increase the number of farmers participating in video- and multi-media mediated trainings, while simultaneously improving gender inclusivity in public training events.
The study discovered strong gender specific considerations, such as the training session’s day of the week and time and the gender of the trainer, which prevented women from or encouraged them to take part in educational events.
It also demonstrates the potential for big data to transform our understanding of unstructured and semi-structured data into statistically verifiable insights that can genuinely impact farmer’s lives. Optimizing women’s involvement in agrifood systems can additionally play an important part in efforts to enhance farm productivity, gender and social inclusion, and nutrition in Bangladesh and beyond.
Introducing mechanization services in any smallholder farming community has proven to yield multiple benefits largely aimed at increasing farming efficiency but importantly creating a solid economic base to boost farmer incomes. Anchored on the two-wheel tractor along with implements for land preparation, planting, harvesting, shelling, transporting, appropriate-scale mechanization has in the last seven years gained currency across African farming households.
Interventions such as the mechanization pilot implemented by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) provide a channel through which smallholder farmers with access to some financial resources can invest to become a viable enterprise. The aim of this intervention is not to make every farmer own its own machinery, which would be costly and inefficient, but to train farmers to become service providers to other community members. This model has been effectively tried before in other places under the Farm Mechanization and Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification (FACASI) project.
A recent visit to two service providers in southern Zimbabwe, demonstrates the high returns on investment achieved through enrolling in mechanization service provision.
Two service providers, one vision: Profit
Julius Shava (53) and Prince Chimema (22), shared their experience in offering diverse transporting and land preparation services using the two-wheel tractor, trailer, direct seeder, and sheller procured through the initiative. Narrating how he learnt about the mechanization pilot and his subsequent enrolment, Shava explains how potential service providers had to make a financial commitment to the business before accessing the equipment.
“Through this mechanization business model, we would receive a two-wheel tractor, trailer, sheller, and seeder worth USD5,000, at a subsidized price of $USD2,500. The main condition for accessing this package was to pay a commitment fee of USD500 – there was no way I could let that opportunity slip away,” explains Shava.
“My wife and I decided to sell two cows to raise the funds and made the payment. Some community members were initially skeptical of the approach when it seemed that the consignment was delayed yet when the two-wheel tractor arrived, they were among the first to inquire about the services I was offering,” Shava adds.
“I made sure they all understood what I could provide for them using the 2WT and trailer such as land preparation and transportation – of manure, gravel stones and pit sand among other things.”
The multipurpose trailer with a loading capacity of up to one and a half tonnes can be attached to the two-wheel tractor for the provision of transport services. (S.Chikulo/CIMMYT)
Shava and Chimema are among fifteen service providers leading in the mechanization pilot initiative launched in July 2020 in Masvingo district. The initiative is supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and managed by the World Food Program (WFP). The private sector machinery company Kurima Machinery facilitates provision of the two-wheel tractor, planter, trailer and sheller while the Zimbabwe Agriculture Trust (ZADT) manages the lease-to-own business model anchoring the mechanization pilot to the financial sector.
Counting the cost and returns
“How much turnover does a service provider realise on average?” is a question frequently asked by other farmers keen to take up the enterprise.
Shava explains the factors he considers, “When someone is hiring my services, I charge according to the distance and load to be transported.” For example, for a 200m delivery radius, I can charge USD5. However, for land preparation and ploughing, I charge USD100 per hectare.” He quickly adds that he also factors in his labor, fuel requirements and time into the final price of his service – a principle he learnt during a specialized technical and business training provided by Gwebi College of Agriculture for the mechanization pilot.
In addition, using the two-wheel tractor is efficient as a hectare is completed in about one hour where an animal drawn plough takes up to six hours or more, depending on the soil type. The reduced drudgery allows farmers to rest their livestock and adopt more efficient and sustainable land preparation technologies. Shava notes that these advantages are immediately apparent to farmers who seek the service.
Customers often pay in cash which is convenient for him as he saves the money or uses some of it to meet expenses related to the service provision. “So far I have reached up to 7 customers after two months from the Nemamwa area in Ward 12 of Masvingo and they were seeking different services. “For land preparation they were paying USD100 per hectare. In Ward 8, I managed to get about three customers.
“When it comes to pricing, I leave room for negotiation because it is inevitable that customers will always ask for a discount, but I ensure that I do not incur losses.” Since venturing into mechanization service provision, Shava has realized a gross income of USD$600 before deducting expenses such as fuel and regular maintenance. However, the two-wheel tractor is fuel efficient – utilizing at least seven liters of diesel per hectare. Diesel fuel is purchased in Masvingo town or from informal markets at the business center at a cost of USD1 per liter.
Young service providers making their mark
Service providers such as Prince Chimema, who are young, energetic and business minded are also among those quickly realizing the high returns on the small mechanization investment. Coming from a family of seven, Chimema – recently married and with a two-year old child – has found a secure income stream in service provision of different mechanization services.
“I am grateful for the financial support from my parents that enabled me to enroll into the mechanization pilot program,” says Chimeme. Like Shava, Chimema’s parents sold two cows to raise the USD500 commitment fee. Soon, Chimema was approaching his relatives and neighbors in the community demonstrating the transporting, planting and land preparation services that he could provide. “Some of my customers would have seen me delivering manure or quarry stones to another household before requesting for my services; that is how my customer base has increased steadily.”
When pricing, Chimema considers the distance, fuel and time it will take to deliver the load. “In this area, requests are for transporting manure, quarry stones, pit sand and river sand. The price ranges from USD4 – USD8 per load. While most villagers pay in cash, a few may request to pay in kind using chickens,”
Chimema’s marketing strategy has been to push volumes by advertising his transporting services to other farmers outside of Ward 18. To date, he has focused on clients requiring transportation services. In Wards 18 and 19, Chimema has served a total of 60 customers, generating USD400 within the first two months of commencing the business.
Challenges and early lessons
Venturing into small mechanized service provision has not been without its challenges as attested by Chimema and Shava, “A lesson I learnt from the onset is never to overload the trailer beyond the recommended capacity,” explains Chimema. “During the mechanization training, we were advised that the trailer’s maximum carrying capacity is between 750-1000kg but at times I could overlook this leading to faults developing on my tractor,” says Prince.
Fuel access also presents challenges at times. “We have to get fuel from Masvingo because the quality of fuel here in the ward may be compromised while the price is slightly inflated because of the middlemen selling the fuel.
The delay in delivery of tractor-drawn direct seeders reduced the potential number of customers for both Chimema and Shava for planting services, as most farmers had proceeded to plant given the early onset of the rainy season. However, both service providers are hopeful that in the next season, with all the equipment in place, they can provide the full range of services to fellow smallholders.
Continuous improvement of the technology by including a toolbar is currently underway, which eases the level of effort required to operate the two-wheel tractor, making it more flexible for the service providers.
Twenty-two-year-old Prince Chimema of Ward 18 Masvingo district demonstrating the two-row direct seeder attached to the two-wheel tractor. (S.Chikulo/CIMMYT)
A vision for expansion and rural transformation
Chimema and Shava are optimistic about the future growth and performance of their business. Both aspire to expand their service provision over the coming five years by purchasing a second two-wheel tractor and creating employment for other villagers. “The income for the second two-wheel tractor should be generated from the current business” explains Shava.
In addition to the land preparation and transporting services, the maize sheller is set to increase their income. With a shelling capacity of 3-4 tons per day, the maize sheller significantly reduces the amount of time and effort required to shell a ton of maize manually (12.5 days).
“The priority now is to make sure that the loan repayment happens smoothly because I am generating enough income to pay back up for my package,” explains Shava. Once the payment is done, Shava would like to set up a borehole and drip irrigation system for their family plot and complete construction of his house in Masvingo town.
Chimema, on the other hand, is keen to start a poultry project. He is currently assisting his parents to pay school fees for his younger sibling but believes the poultry project will increase his income stream. “As I broadcast and market my services by word of mouth and through mobile platform messages; there is room for me to expand beyond Ward 18 and 19,” says Chimema. “I hope to employ at least two more people in the coming two or three years, to help me deliver the services to other farmers,” he adds.
“With the business experience gained from the current season, small mechanization service providers such as Chimema and Shava can increase the portfolio of services to customers”, says Christian Thierfelder, Principal Scientist at CIMMYT, leading the effort. “For example, at planting stage, service providers could provide a complete package for farmers including seed and fertilizer as well as a supply of appropriate herbicides for weed control as part of the land preparation and direct seeding service. Such an offering increases the value of the service and affords farmers the opportunity to witness the full benefits of small mechanized agriculture”, Thierfelder says.
“We have to provide farmers with options to abandon the hoe. The drudgery of farming has made this profession so unattractive that a rural exodus is looming. Providing business, employment and entrepreneurship will bring back hope and will lead to a true rural and agriculture transformation in Zimbabwe.” The high return on investment of the mechanized package makes it a viable year-round business option for farmers and entrepreneurs in rural Masvingo. The pilot is providing a proof of concept that this model works, even under low-potential environments.
Cover photo: Julius Shava and his wife standing at their lease-to-own two-wheel tractor which is part of the starter package for small-mechanization service providers in Masvingo District. (S.Chikulo/CIMMYT)
Given the very heterogeneous conditions in smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa, there is a growing policy interest in site-specific extension advice and the use of related digital tools. However, empirical ex ante studies on the design of this type of tools are scant and little is known about their impact on site-specific extension advice.
In partnership with Oyakhilomen Oyinbo and colleagues at KU Leuven, scientists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) have carried out research to clarify user preferences for tailored nutrient management advice and decision-support tools. The studies also evaluated the impact of targeted fertilizer recommendations enabled by such tools.
Understanding farmers’ adoption
A better understanding of farmers’ and extension agents’ preferences may help to optimize the design of digital decision-support tools.
Oyinbo and co-authors conducted a study among 792 farming households in northern Nigeria, to examine farmers’ preferences for maize intensification in the context of site-specific extension advice using digital tools.
Overall, farmers were favorably disposed to switch from general fertilizer use recommendations to targeted nutrient management recommendations for maize intensification enabled by decision-support tools. This lends credence to the inclusion of digital tools in agricultural extension. The study also showed that farmers have heterogeneous preferences for targeted fertilizer recommendations, depending on their resources, sensitivity to risk and access to services.
The authors identified two groups of farmers with different preference patterns: a first group described as “strong potential adopters of site-specific extension recommendations for more intensified maize production” and a second group as “weak potential adopters.” While the two groups of farmers are willing to accept some yield variability for a higher average yield, the trade-off is on average larger for the first group, who have more resources and are less sensitive to risk.
The author recommended that decision-support tools include information on the riskiness of expected investment returns and flexibility in switching between low- and high-risk recommendations. This design improvement will help farmers to make better informed decisions.
Community leaders talk to researchers in one of the villages in norther Nigeria which took part in the study. (Photo: Oyakhilomen Oyinbo)
Members of the survey team participate in a training session at Bayero University Kano, Nigeria. (Photo: Oyakhilomen Oyinbo)
One of the sites of nutrient omission trials, used during the development phase of the Nutrient Expert tool in Nigeria. (Photo: Oyakhilomen Oyinbo)
Using data from a discrete choice experiment, the study showed that extension agents were generally willing to accept the use of digital decision-support tools for site‐specific fertilizer recommendations. While extension agents in the sample preferred tools with a more user‐friendly interface that required less time to generate an output, the authors also found substantial preference heterogeneity for other design features. Some extension agents cared more about the outputs, such as information accuracy and level of detail, while others prioritized practical features such as the tool’s platform, language or interface.
According to the authors, accounting for such variety of preferences into the design of decision-support tools may facilitate their adoption by extension agents and, in turn, enhance their impact in farmars’ agricultural production decisions.
Interface of the Nutrient Expert mobile app, locally calibrated for maize farmers in Nigeria.
Impact of digital tools
Traditional extension systems in sub-Saharan African countries, including Nigeria, often provide general fertilizer use recommendations which do not account for the substantial variation in production conditions. Such blanket recommendations are typically accompanied by point estimates of expected agronomic responses and associated economic returns, but they do not provide any information on the variability of the expected returns associated with output price risk.
Policymakers need a better understanding of how new digital agronomy tools for tailored recommendations affect the performance of smallholder farms in developing countries.
To contribute to the nascent empirical literature on this topic, Oyinbo and colleagues evaluated the impact of a nutrient management decision-support tool for maize – Nutrient Expert — on fertilizer use, management practices, yields and net revenues. The authors also evaluated the impacts of providing information about variability in expected investment returns.
To provide rigorous evidence, the authors conducted a three-year randomized controlled trial among 792 maize-producing households in northern Nigeria. The trial included two treatment groups who are exposed to site-specific fertilizer recommendations through decision-support tools — one with and another one without additional information on variability in expected returns — and a control group who received general fertilizer use recommendations.
Overall, the use of nutrient management decision-support tools resulted in greater fertilizer investments and better grain yields compared with controls. Maize grain yield increased by 19% and net revenue increased by 14% after two years of the interventions. Fertilizer investments only increased significantly among the farmers who received additional information on the variability in expected investment returns.
The findings suggest including site-specific decision support tools into extension programming and related policy interventions has potential benefits on maize yields and food security, particularly when such tools also supply information on the distribution of expected returns to given investment recommendations.
The research-for-development community has tried different approaches to optimize fertilizer recommendations. In Nigeria, there are several tools available to generate location-specific fertilizer recommendations, including Nutrient Expert. As part of the Taking Maize Agronomy to Scale in Africa (TAMASA) project, CIMMYT has been working on locally calibrated versions of this tool for maize farmers in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania. The development was led by a project team incorporating scientists from the African Plant Nutrition Institute (APNI), CIMMYT and local development partners in each country.
Next steps
Some studies have shown that dis-adoption of seemingly profitable technologies — such as fertilizer in sub-Saharan Africa — is quite common, especially when initial returns fall short of expectations or net utility is negative, producing a disappointment effect.
In the context of emerging digital decision-support tools for well-targeted fertilizer use recommendations, it remains unclear whether farmers’ initial input use responses and the associated economic returns affect their subsequent responses — and whether the disappointment effect can be attenuated through provision of information about uncertainty in expected returns.
Using our three-year randomized controlled trial and the associated panel dataset, researchers are now working on documenting the third-year responses of farmers to site-specific agronomic advice conditional on the second-year responses. Specifically, they seek to better document whether providing farmers with information about seasonal variability in expected investment returns can reduce possible disappointment effects associated with their initial uptake of site-specific agronomic advice and, in a way, limit dis-adoption of fertilizer.
Cover photo: A farmer shows maize growing in his field, in one of the communities in northern Nigeria where research took place. (Photo: Oyakhilomen Oyinbo)
A new guidance note shines a brighter light on the role of women in wheat-based farming systems in the Indo-Gangetic Plains and provides actionable recommendations to researchers, rural advisory services, development partners, and policymakers on how to support working communities more effectively and knowledgeably. The publication, Supporting labor and managerial feminization processes in wheat in the Indo-Gangetic Plains: A guidance note, is based on a literature review, including work by researchers at and associated with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and Pandia Consulting.
“Feminization of agriculture is happening in wheat-based systems in South Asia, but these processes are under-researched and their implications are poorly understood. This guidance note, focusing on Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, highlights some of the commonalities and differences in feminization processes in each country,” said Hom Gartaula, gender and social inclusion specialist at CIMMYT, and one of the lead authors of the study.
This eight-page publication is based on research funded by the CGIAR Collaborative Platform on Gender Research, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT).
How great innovations miss critical opportunities by ignoring women
Even the most well-intentioned agricultural interventions can have external costs that can hinder economic development in the long run. The guidance note cites a study that reveals, during India’s Green Revolution, that the introduction of high-yielding varieties of wheat actually “led to a significant decline in women’s paid hired labor because wheat was culturally defined as suited to male laborers. Male wages rose, and women’s wages fell.” Importantly, most women did not find alternative sources of income.
This is not to say that the high-yielding varieties were a poor intervention themselves; these varieties helped India and Pakistan stave off famine and produce record harvests. Rather, the lack of engagement with social norms meant that the economic opportunities from this important innovation excluded women and thus disempowered them.
Wheat farmers during a field day in Odisha, India. (Photo: Wasim Iftikar/CSISA)
A closer look at labor feminization and managerial feminization processes
The guidance note points out that it is not possible to generalize across and within countries, as gender norms can vary, and intersectionalities between gender, caste and other identities have a strong impact on women’s participation in fieldwork. Nevertheless, there seem to be some broad trends. The fundamental cross-cutting issue is that women’s contribution to farming is unrecognized, regardless of the reality of their work, by researchers, rural advisory services and policymakers. A second cross-cutting issue is that much research is lodged in cultural norms that reflect gender biases, rather than challenge them, through careful, non-judgemental quantitative and qualitative research.
In Bangladesh, women’s participation in agriculture is slowly increasing as off-farm opportunities decline, though it remains limited compared to women in the other countries examined. Hired agricultural work is an important income source for some women. Emerging evidence from work from CSISA and CIMMYT shows that women are becoming decision-makers alongside their husbands in providing mechanization services. Nevertheless, technical, economic and cultural barriers broadly constrain women’s effective participation in decision-making and fieldwork.
In India, agricultural labor is broadly feminizing as men take up off-farm opportunities and women take up more responsibilities on family farms and as hired laborers. Yet information derived from CIMMYT GENNOVATE studies cited in the guidance note shows that external actors, like rural advisory services and researchers, frequently make little effort to include women in wheat information dissemination and training events despite emerging evidence of women taking managerial roles in some communities. Some researchers and most rural advisory services continue to work with outdated and damaging assumptions about “who does the work” and “who decides” that are not necessarily representative of farmers’ realities.
Women in Nepal provide the bulk of the labor force to agriculture. With men migrating to India and the Gulf countries to pursue other opportunities, some women are becoming de-facto heads of households and are making more decisions around farming. Still, women are rarely targeted for trainings in on-farm mechanization and innovation. However, there is evidence that simple gender-equality outreach from NGOs and supportive extension agents can have a big impact on women’s empowerment, including promoting their ability to innovate in wheat.
In Pakistan, male out-migration to cities and West Asia is a driving force in women’s agricultural involvement. Significant regional differences in cultural norms mean that women’s participation and decision-making varies across the country, creating differences regarding the degree to which their increased involvement is empowering. As in the other three countries, rural advisory services primarily focus on men. This weakens women’s ability to make good farming decisions and undermines their voice in intra-household decision-making.
Women in Nepal using agricultural machinery. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
Recommendations
Research should be conducted in interdisciplinary teams and mindsets, which helps design both qualitative and quantitative research free of assumptions and bias. Qualitative and quantitative researchers need to better document the reality of women’s agricultural work, both paid and unpaid.
National agricultural research systems, rural advisory services and development partners are encouraged to work with local partners, including women’s groups and NGOs, to develop gender-transformative approaches with farmers. Services must develop more inclusive criteria for participation in field trials and extension events to invite more women and marginalized communities.
Policymakers are invited to analyze assumptions in existing policies and to develop new policies that better reflect women’s work and support women’s decision-making in the agricultural sector. Researchers should provide policymakers with more appropriate and up-to-date gender data to help them make informed decisions.
These recommendations name a few of many suggestions presented in the guidance note that can ensure agricultural feminization process are positive forces for everyone involved in wheat systems of the Indo-Gangetic Plains. As a whole, acknowledging the reality of these changes well underway in South Asia — and around the world — will not just empower women, but strengthen wheat-based agri-food systems as a whole.
Cover photo: Farmer Bhima Bhandari returns home after field work carrying her 7-month-old son Sudarsan on her back in Bardiya, Nepal. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
Surender Prasad stands next to his Happy Seeder-mounted tractor in Uttar Pradesh, India. (Photo: Ajay K Pundir/CIMMYT)
The agricultural sector is possibly the largest livelihood provider in India, with the smallholder farming community in the vast Indo-Gangetic Plains making the bulk of it. They are the community responsible for growing the food available on our table. In celebration of India’s National Farmer’s Day on December 23 — known in Hindi as Kisan Diwas — we share the story of a farmer-turned-entrepreneur from eastern Uttar Pradesh, where the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and its partners have invested in supporting smallholder farmers to implement best farming practices and improve yields through sustainable intensification.
“I am a farmer and I am hopeful of a future for my children in the farming sector,” says Surender Prasad, a 52-year-old farmer from Umila village in Santkabir Nagar district, Uttar Pradesh. Prasad is one of the innovative farmers in and around the district who has time and again strived to introduce new implements and technologies on his farm — often a big risk for smallholders like him.
In 2014, Prasad met researchers from CIMMYT’s Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project while visiting the village Lazar Mahadeva during an inter-district traveling seminar. After seeing the farmer demonstration plots for himself — which, incidentally, is one of the best ways of raising farmer awareness in the region — Prasad was convinced of the efficiency of transplanting rice by machine and using zero tillage in wheat production.
Through his continued association with the project, Prasad has now adopted both practices, in addition to direct seeded rice (DSR) and Laser Land Levelling. With a single 35 horsepower tractor, cultivator and harrow, Prasad was able to improve his wheat grain yield by one ton per hectare during the 2014-15 cropping season, and secure improved profit margins as a result.
Encouraged by these results, in 2018 Prasad purchased a 55 horsepower New Holland Tractor, a Happy Seeder, a tractor-mounted sprayer and other machinery for custom hire under the state government’s machinery bank scheme. His aspiration for entrepreneurship grew in the months following these purchases and he has since established himself as a local service provider, alongside his role as a farmer. According to Prasad, his continued association with CSISA and its network of partners helped him gain better technical knowledge and skills as well as confidence with using conservation agriculture-based machinery, thanks to trainings provided by the project team.
Surender Prasad stands in his field, where wheat grows under rice-crop residue. (Photo: Ajay K Pundir/CIMMYT)
A budding entrepreneur
Today Prasad is an important entrepreneur in the region, providing custom hiring services for Happy Seeder and DSR and promoting agricultural mechanization in his community. Going forward, scale-appropriate farm mechanization will help farmers in the area to intensify their cropping system at a lower cost, supported by use of the conservation agriculture approaches encouraged by the CSISA project team, which have been shown to improve yields, reduce farmer costs and preserve natural resources. For example, using these best management practices Prasad was able to harvest an additional 1.1 tons of wheat from the 10 acres of land owned by him and his brother, and most farmers in his village now follow his crop management advice.
He is quick to adopt new ideas and has become something of an influencer in the area, earning him friends among the farming community and helping the CSISA team reach more farmers with new innovations.
This year the opportunity for hiring out mechanization services has been immense, largely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has created difficulties for farmers engaged in rice transplanting. As a result, Prasad managed to sow 90 acres of DSR on his own farm and in the nearby village, as well as seeding 105 acres of wheat in the fall 2020 season. “Thanks to mechanization we were far less affected by the COVID-19 disruptions and managed to plant rice and then wheat without much delay,” he explains. Prasad also provided tractor-mounted sprayer services for applying herbicides and insecticide on 90 acres of rice crop. Considering these successes, he has now planned to offer year-round extension services.
“I feel overwhelmed after serving my own community as a service provider,” says Prasad. “I feel proud of myself when other farmers come asking for my assistance.” Endorsing his contribution as an innovative farmer, the Department of Agriculture for the Government of Uttar Pradesh recognized him with awards in 2015 and 2019. He attributes his success to his exposure to CSISA interventions and support and believes that CSISA acted as a facilitator, encouraging him to use his ideas for his own benefit and for the benefit of the larger agrarian community around him.
Surender Prasad drives his Happy Seeder-mounted tractor in Uttar Pradesh, India. (Photo: Ajay K Pundir/CIMMYT)
A new small-mechanization pilot initiative launched in July is equipping farmers with the business and technical skills they need to provide mechanization services to communities in six wards of Masvingo district, Zimbabwe.
With funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) managed by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is leading implementation of the pilot in collaboration with Kurima Machinery and the Zimbabwe Agriculture Development Trust (ZADT), who are supporting the technical training and financial management, respectively.
Anchored on a strong business model, 15 farmers have signed up to become service providers and invested an initial deposit of $500 to access the mechanization package comprising a two-wheel tractor and trailer, a direct planter and a maize cob sheller. Through a “lease-to-own” credit facility, eligible service providers will have 24 months to pay the remaining balance for the set of equipment.
“This approach addresses re-payment challenges in past interventions, where equipment was distributed without a firm commitment from the service providers and without putting in enough effort to establish a viable business,” says Christian Thierfelder, a cropping systems agronomist at CIMMYT. “An advantage of this new form of financial commitment by the service providers is that it guarantees full participation and a change in their perception towards farming as a business.”
Since 2013, smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe have been exposed to the benefits of combining small-mechanization with conservation farming systems to improve productivity — land preparation, planting and harvesting to achieve higher yields while reducing production costs. Besides making farming tasks more efficient for individuals, this set of equipment can be used to provide critical services to other farmers in their wards.
The two-wheel tractor can have various implements attached to it for services such as planting, transportation and shelling. It can also be used to run other important implements such as water pumps, mills or threshers.
This mechanization pilot therefore presents an additional pathway out of poverty and into sustainable production and income generation at household level, while boosting the local economy and rural employment in Masvingo district.
Service providers, extension officers and CIMMYT staff pose for a group photo after completing a training course at Gwebi Agricultural College, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Shiela Chikulo/CIMMYT)
Training for local service provision
Eligible service providers were recently invited to attend a one-week specialized business and technical training course at Gwebi Agricultural College, just outside of Harare. The training package consisted of two main components: business management; and two-wheel tractor operation, maintenance and repair.
Elliot Zvovovo, a participating service provider, explains how the balanced training approach equipped him fully with all the knowledge and skills he needs to run his business. “I learned different ways of record keeping, managing income and treating my clients professionally,” he says.
“On the machinery side, I learned about of all the parts of a two-wheel tractor and practiced assembling the engine so that maintenance and repair will be easy for me.”
Julius Shava, another participating service provider, agrees, adding that knowing how to maintain the two-wheel tractor and troubleshooting will also minimize costs of hiring external mechanics to attend to faults. “I realized the importance of routine checks for oil and water levels, how to crank-start the tractor and hitch the planter all by myself.”
Supporting agricultural extension in line with service providers is critical to mainstreaming transformational change in rural areas. As such, seven local extension officers — key partners in the implementation of small-mechanization activities — were also invited to participate in the training.
“The training proved to be very effective, particularly the emphasis on mastering business principles and on the technical side, integrating service providers’ existing knowledge of conservation farming with small-mechanization,” says Canaan Zhakata, an extension officer for Ward 15.
Through the practical sessions, all service providers have now learned how to operate a two-wheel tractor, calibrate the direct planter for seed and fertilizer rates and use the sheller — giving them full technical skills and knowledge,” explains Dorcas Matangi, a research associate at CIMMYT.
The certification they have received will increase farmers’ confidence as they return to Masvingo to commence service delivery, with continued on-site support from their local extension officers. “Once we return to Masvingo, we can assist the new service providers by monitoring their service delivery to ensure full compliance with the technical requirements for operating the machinery,” says Tsvakai Dumbu, an extension officer for Ward 17.
A service provider starts a two-wheel tractor while other participants look on at a training at Gwebi Agricultural College, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Shiela Chikulo/CIMMYT)
A profitable business for the local economy
This mechanization pilot is poised for success as it draws on existing positive results gained by the women and youth service providers in western Zimbabwe, who are running successful mechanized enterprises following the recently completed Farm Mechanization and Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification (FACASI) project.
“During a recent seed fair, we heard of a youth group in Makonde that is making up to $7,000 just from maize shelling services,” says Zvovovo. “Knowing that it takes just one day to shell up to three tons of maize with the sheller, I now know that reaching such an income is achievable.”
This pilot will prove that there is scope for small-mechanization to expand on productivity through the two-wheel tractor, trailer and sheller, as shown in other parts of eastern and southern Africa. It will explore leverages on the opportunities and demand for services in Masvingo.
Cover image: An extension officer from Masvingo district drives a two-wheel tractor during a training for service providers and extension officers at Gwebi Agricultural College, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Shiela Chikulo/CIMMYT)
Post-harvest losses — which can range between 10-20% in major cereals — cause not only the loss of economic value of the food produced, but also the waste of scarce resources such as labor, land, and water, as well as non-renewable resources such as fertilizer and energy.
“High postharvest losses imply reduced grain yield, but with the same total greenhouse gas emission,” says Rabé Yahaya, a CIM/GIZ Integrated Expert working at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). “Reducing these losses reduces the yield-scaled global warming potential — total greenhouse gas emission per kilogram of grain — and contributes to climate change mitigation, as well as food security.”
A significant proportion of these losses are caused by late harvest due to labor shortages, with crops languishing in the field before farmers can retrieve them. Small and medium-sized machinery may seem like the answer, but many one or two-axe machines are often unable to reach the inner sections of rice and wheat fields because of limited road access, or the fact that they are simply too heavy to carry.
“As mechanized land preparation works outwards, inner fields get ready for harvest first, but without any applicated technical solution,” he explains.
Could motorized scythes be the answer? Yahaya thinks so.
The other scythe
Motorized scythes are hand-operated tools used for mowing grass or reaping crops. Though largely replaced by horse-drawn and tractor-mounted implements, they are still commonly used in some areas of Asia and Europe.
Models specifically adapted for harvesting rice and wheat have been commercially available in Africa for over two decades and currently sell for $150-350, presenting the lowest initial investment cost of all engine-driven solutions on the market. The motor scythe also boasts the lowest harvest cost per hectare and is portable enough to reach inner fields.
Despite its relative affordability, uptake in much of West Africa has been slow, as many farmers have found the 10kg machinery too heavy for sustained use.
“Studies carried out in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire and Mali show that this rapid fatigue is caused by incorrect handling of the machinery, including flawed posture,” Yahaya explains. “This is simply because most operators have never undertaken official training for operating the tool.”
In a bid to address this challenge, Yahaya has been collaborating with Elliott Dossou, Sali Atanga Ndindeng and Ernst Zippel — all scientists at AfricaRice — to design and test potential solutions. Their proposal for the development of a Service Provider Harvest (SPH) model has been shortlisted for the GIZ Innovation Fund 2020 award, from a GIZ/BMZ-supported Innovation Fund.
Ernst Zippel, CIM/GIZ Integrated Expert at AfricaRice, presents on the reduction of postharvest losses through correct usage of motor scythes. (Video: AfricaRice)
Cut for service
The approach focuses heavily on capacity development, with an initial nucleus group of trainers taking the lead on activities such as recruiting and contracting service providers, providing training on harvesting and threshing, supporting aftersales services such as machine maintenance and repair, and helping to determine the optimum harvest time.
Under the proposed model, each trainer will be responsible for a group of around 50 service providers, who will receive guidance on understanding their role, finance, creating a network of client farmers, machine maintenance and use.
In addition to the financial rewards and aftersales services, the training opportunities will make this technology accessible to young entrepreneurs in rural areas. Earning up to $18 a day for harvesting and weeding services, those using the tool can expect to see a return on their initial investment in one to two months.
“Young people are the main prospective clients for this initiative,” says Yahaya. “With the motor scythe and related training, they can start earning serious money.” He stresses, however, that all farmers – regardless of age or gender – will be able to benefit from the job creation opportunities this initiative provides.
The initiative has been shortlisted for the GIZ Innovation Fund 2020. If selected, funding from the accelerator program would support testing, the integration of GPS sensors into the tools, creation of a platform for bank security and Carbon Credit earning, other technical activities.
Starting machinery to husk maize cobs at Green Farm near Kitale, Trans-Nzoia. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
The development community is introducing increasingly complex and systemic technological designs for sustainable improvements to agriculture. Yet, a systemic perspective is hard to find in “adoption-outcome” focused analyses of technological change processes. In order to improve development interventions, it is necessary not only to analyze both successes and failures, but also the process and impacts of technological change.
Researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) recently published a paper on rethinking technological change in smallholder agriculture, arguing against the conventional approach to studying technology adoption.
The problem with the concept of technology adoption
While the adoption rate of newly introduced technologies is still used in the evaluation of agricultural research and development, the theory of technology adoption is an insufficient framework for understanding technological change. It is too linear, too binary, too focused on individual decisions and gives an inaccurate and misleading picture to researchers.
The theory of adoption treats technology like a “black box” that is transferred smoothly from one setting to another, following a linear progression of old and inferior tools and methods to new improved ones. This theory is too simplistic to align with the complex realities of the capabilities and agency of multiple actors. In addition, in cases of participatory technology development, where intended users are involved in the creation of innovations, adoption rates are often limited due to the relatively small scale of the project.
Using adoption rate as the only indicator of success or failure can lead researchers to ignore wider impacts of the introduction of a new technology. Adoption rates could go up, but use of a new technology could cause harm to social relations, the local environment, or its resilience. Low adoption rates could classify a program as a failure, while farmers benefited substantially in undetected ways, for example forming networks or acquiring new skills and knowledge. A singular focus on adoption rates thus limits our understanding of what happens in processes of technological change.
Farmer Kausila Chanara direct dry seeding rice in Ramghat, Surkhet, Nepal. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
An alternative conceptual framework
In addition to the introduction of a new technology to small-scale farming systems, technological change involves the agency of many social actors. The agency of farmers, scientists, project managers and extension officers is key to understand whether a new technology is perceived to be useful, accessible or realistic, as well as how it is adjusted and changing social relations.
A new framework is needed to capture this reconfiguration of social and technological components that result from the introduction of a new technology to a community.
The authors of this paper propose an alternative conceptual framework with an agent-, practice- and process-oriented approach to better understand technological change. The framework is composed of four key components: propositions, encounters, dispositions and responses.
Propositions are composed of artefacts, methods, techniques and practices and a proposed mode of engagement in agricultural production. Encounters can be deliberately organized, for example a field day, or spontaneous, when a farmer sees a neighbor using a new tool. Intended users of technology may be disposed to respond in a variety of different ways, and dispositions may change over time. Finally, responses are a process or pathway that is likely to involve adjustment or recalibration to make the new technology work for the farmer.
Further work to operationalize this framework is needed. The authors suggest a next step of developing indicators to measure learning, experimentation and behavioral change as part of analyzing technological change processes.
Testing SeedAssure, a decision support tool, on a tablet in the field. (Photo: Jerome Bossuet)
Should we reinvent the way we advise African smallholder farmers?
Development organization professionals from the agriculture, health, education, conservation and humanitarian sectors will gather from April 30 to May 2, 2019 in Kampala, Ugandafor the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for Development ICT4D conference organized by Catholic Relief Services. The aim of this conference is to explore which digital innovations could accelerate progress towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. Jens Andersson, a social scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), will speak on how we could reinvent advisory services for African smallholder farmers, such as through decision support tools. The following interview reflects his thoughts on the issue.
Q: Some experts say that current agronomic research does not properly advise smallholder farmers. Farmers are given blanket recommendations on key subjects such as crop varieties, fertilizer use and seed spacing. Why do you think that we need to reinvent advisory services?
A: Smallholder farmers with limited resources often can’t afford fertilizer and seed. They also don’t reach agronomic management levels assumed by the blanket recommendations given by agricultural extension services. They may not have enough cash to invest, enough labor to carry out tasks – such as weeding – as frequently as recommended, or they may not prioritize crop production as a part of their livelihood. Consequently, input investments and agronomic management vary considerably from field to field and so does the fertility of those fields. Standard advice simply is not enough, given the diversity of farmers’ situations.
The challenge is to identify the key factors shaping maize yields in farmers’ fields and to identify how a farmer could more efficiently use his or her available inputs and available labor. It is not about telling farmers what to do, but about providing options that suit each farmer’s situation. Technologies such as remote sensing and ICTs can help tremendously in data collection for assessing the conditions of farmers’ fields and better tailoring agronomic advice to their specific situation.
Q: Since 2015, CIMMYT has been working with research, extension and development partners in Nigeria, Ethiopia and Tanzania to develop strategies to Take Maize Agronomy to Scale in Africa (TAMASA). Can you explain the overall approach on how to scale advice to farmers?
A: With ICTs, we can now link and integrate very diverse types of geospatial data, such as soil data, climate and weather data, as well as socio-economic data such as market prices and population densities. Mobile internet and GPS enable us to have such data available for any location. When combined with information obtained from farmers about their field conditions and preferences, agronomic advice can become location-specific.
This approach requires that agronomic data be collected in a geospatial manner. Therefore, TAMASA has conducted numerous agronomic experiments across agricultural landscapes in major maize growing areas in Nigeria, Ethiopia and Tanzania to establish a geographical distribution of soil nutrient availability and fertilizer responses. Such information can be used to model crop responses to fertilizer, and — when combined with fertilizer and crop price information — can provide nutrient recommendations for an individual field through an ex-ante spatial assessment framework. With this approach, extension providers can improve fertilizer recommendations, increasing farmers’ fertilizer use efficiency, productivity and profitability.
For example, in a trial conducted with 435 farmers in Nigeria, using the decision support tool Nutrient Expert resulted in farmers investing more in inputs and agronomic management and doubling their maize yields from 2 to 4 tons per hectare on average.
Q: What digital innovations do you want to showcase at the ICT4D conference? Which type of users are you targeting?
A: Providing location- or field-specific advice at scale requires understanding what information farmers need and what extension services they use. This is probably best illustrated with the example of the Maize-Variety-Selector (MVS) – a mobile phone application developed by TAMASA. Using climate data, information on the growth characteristics of specific maize varieties and multilocational agronomic trials, this application can advise on the most suitable maize varieties for a particular location and for a preferred planting and harvesting date. The application provides options tailored to farmers’ preferences and farming conditions.
Yet, such advice is of limited value in situations where the advised crop varieties are not available in local agro-dealer shops, or when farmers can’t be sure they are actually buying the variety of their choice due to poor packaging and labeling practices, as is sometimes the case in Nigeria.
In addition, government extension services in sub-Saharan Africa are overburdened and not capable of reaching many individual farmers: there is usually only one extension worker for every 2,500 farmers or more.
To improve extension outreach in Western Kenya, TAMASA developed a plant density and seed requirement mobile phone application – Maize-Seed-Area (MSA) – in consultation with both extension workers and agro-dealers. Using this application, extension workers reported they could now provide information on specific maize varieties because the application has a built-in database of available maize varieties.
The Maize-Seed-Area (MSA) mobile phone application.
Experiences of agro-dealers were different, as some found that their customers had made up their minds about what variety to buy before entering an agro-dealer shop. Agro-dealers reported that their customers particularly liked the seed requirement calculator, which provides immediate advice on how much seed to buy of a particular variety. In a phone survey, farmers indicated that they trusted the agro-dealers’ advice when it was provided by the mobile phone application.
Q: TAMASA has been exploring the use of decision support tools for large-scale agronomic investments such as country-wide fertilizer subsidy programs. Could you explain your approach to this issue and its potential applications?
A: Some regional soil fertility programs and African governments aim to improve farmers’ yields and incomes through costly, large-scale distribution of fertilizers or soil inputs. Generating more site-specific agronomic recommendations at scale and taking into account the spatial diversity of a landscape, market prices and other supply chain elements will optimize the impact of such operations.
TAMASA has integrated various geospatial datasets such as the ISRIC World Soil Information’s SoilGrids, the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study agriculture dataset (LSMS-ISA), and the Global Yield Gap Atlas. Thanks to the ex-ante spatial assessment framework, we can better target future areas of intervention that currently have low maize yields but could potentially have profitable fertilizer usage.
Mapping predictive yield response and profitability can give us precious insights. For instance, many Ethiopian farmers face acid soils, and the government and development agencies have been thinking about lime distribution at scale to combat this issue. We could potentially create a lime dashboard by adapting the ex-ante spatial framework and provide key information to policymakers at the local and national level.
Q: Are you looking for potential partners at the ICT4D conference to help scale up this work?
A: At the ICT4D conference, we are looking forward to teaming up with new development partners, seed producers and governments to make these field- and farmer-specific advisory applications and decision support tools for agronomic investments more widely available to African smallholder maize farmers.
Field technicians use their cameras during the Photovoice training. (Photo: CIMMYT)
The main focus of the Sustainable and Resilient Farming Systems Intensification (SRFSI) project is on conservation agriculture technologies. Since farmers may face an increase in weeds after adopting zero-till planters, however, more research is needed about how farmers are dealing with weed.
One of the research objectives of the project is to understand farmers’ knowledge, perception, and practices of conservation agriculture. To this end, researchers are using the Photovoice methodology in Cooch Behar (West Bengal, India), Rongpur (Bangladesh) and Sunsari (Nepal) to collect relevant data on weed management practices.
Photovoice is a visual qualitative research method that allows people to express their perspectives through photographs. Photography can be used for evaluation purposes, through storytelling exercises.
On December 6-7, 2019, field technicians in Bangladesh, India and Nepal participated in a training about this methodology. They learned the rationale of Photovoice, its technical and logistic aspects, as well as the ethical considerations and the need to collect consent forms.
Participants also learned how to take pictures of inter-row cultivation and weeds on the farm, and how to confirm the geolocation of the farm.
Worth a thousand words
Using the Photovoice method, 30 households will be explored, including their labor allocation and decision-making dynamics around the implementation of conservation agriculture practices.
The effectiveness of this approach will emerge as smallholder farmers present their perspectives through photographs accompanied by their narratives.
Activities will be monitored on weekly basis.
The SRFSI project, funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, is set to improve the productivity, profitability and sustainability of smallholder agriculture in the Eastern Gangetic Plains of Bangladesh, India and Nepal, by promoting sustainable intensification based on conservation agriculture technologies.
