For further information contact: Douglas White

Beans

• Over the last decade, bean production in Latin America has increased by a third, despite a substantial decrease in area planted. Steady growth in yield has resulted to a large degree from improved varieties; 180 originating from CIAT germplasm have been released in the region since 1975.

• The 100 or more improved bean varieties and other technologies made available in Africa since 1985 are starting to have an impact. In Rwanda, for example, 43 percent of farmers had adopted new climbing beans by the early 1990s generating benefits worth about US$12 million per year. By 1995 nearly 50 percent of farmers were growing the improved varieties, despite the civil war in 1994.

Cassava

• Improved cassava cultivars containing CIAT germplasm are planted on about a half million hectares in Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and China. In those countries the crop is grown mainly by small-scale farmers and increasingly for the starch industry and for livestock feed. Higher cassava yields are enabling farmers to raise their income through the sale of fresh cassava, while agroindustries that process this raw material are creating jobs in both rural and urban areas.

• CIAT contributed importantly to the successful search in South America for natural enemies that could control the cassava mealybug and cassava green mite in sub-Saharan Africa. These pests devastated production across the continent, threatening a major source of calories for about 200 million Africans. The biological control campaign was undertaken by our sister center in Nigeria, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA).

• In the 1980s the Center launched a series of integrated projects aimed at devising a research and development strategy that would empower farmers to establish, operate, and manage local cassava-based industries. The approach has been applied successfully in Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador. Between 1984 and 1992, one project in Colombia put US$16 million in the pockets of low-income producers and processors. Another $2 million went to poor urban consumers through lower but more stable prices for fresh cassava.

Rice

• Rice production in Latin America has tripled over the last three decades, partly as a result of the approximately 300 improved rice varieties developed by CIAT and national programs. Today these varieties account for more than 70 percent of the region's total rice production. More efficient production has helped lower the price of this vital staple by about 40 percent. Lower prices have benefitted the poor in particular, since they spend a large proportion of their income on food.

Forages

• Forage grasses identified by CIAT (in the genera Brachiaria and Andropogon) are now being grown on more than 10 million hectares in tropical savannas and in hillside areas of Central America and the Andean zone. Forage Arachis is being widely used as a soil cover to improve soil quality and to provide high-quality feed for intensive farming systems in tropical America. These new species increase livestock productivity by 20 to 100 percent, depending on the species they replace.

Participatory Research

• A participatory approach by which farmers are organized into local agricultural research committees (or CIALs) has increased the effectiveness of adaptive research and reduced its costs. Developed originally in Colombia, the CIAL method is now being used in more than a half dozen other countries of Latin America. Participatory methods developed by CIAT are also being applied in Southeast Asia as well as eastern and central Africa.