In North and South alike, agriculture is a perennial gamble. Farmers have little
influence—and sometimes none at all—over the biophysical factors involved in
plant growth and the economic conditions that dictate profit or loss. Among the most
elusive variables are weather, pest and disease pressures, and commodity prices.
Poor people in the tropics make up the vast majority of the world’s farmers. They
are also the ones most exposed and vulnerable to threats. Yet there are many entry points
through which they can gain some control over an otherwise risky livelihood. Adopting new
crop varieties that resist stresses, improving family nutrition, and organizing the
community for sustained local rural innovation are among the options.
In the following pages, we examine some of the key constraints and risks faced by
developing country farmers. We then highlight a few examples of how CIAT’s research
is helping to build rural resilience in a world full of unexpected threats and
opportunities.
Coping with Risk
In most industrial economies, support for farmers in their age-old task of coping with
risk is just a phone call or Internet search away. Access to timely technical information
goes a long way to reducing their vulnerability to the unexpected. Acquiring the latest
improved plant varieties, livestock breeds, and chemical inputs also helps. But when such
measures fail, there is always crop insurance to fall back on.
Risk factors
Small-scale farmers in the tropics do not have nearly as many aces up their sleeve. The
art of taking calculated risks is more complex for them and the consequences of being
wrong are more brutal. Indeed, total crop failure and seasonal hunger are all too common.
To begin with, small farmers in developing countries usually cannot afford the chemical
inputs that their counterparts in the North routinely administer to protect investments.
While fertilizer application, for example, varies widely across countries and regions, a
few numbers from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) illustrate the point clearly. In 1999 industrialized Italy, with
58 million people, consumed 1.8 million metric tons of fertilizers. In contrast, the 41
sub-Saharan African countries for which figures are available together used only 75
percent of that amount. Yet their combined population is 10 times greater than
Italy’s, and their soil fertility problems are intrinsically worse.
Second, small holdings in the tropics are often located on hilly, marginal land whose
soil quality, slope, and elevation vary dramatically even between plots on the same farm.
Soil erosion and even landslides are a constant hazard. Third, rural communities in the
tropics rarely have access to the full array of sophisticated public and private services
that farmers in industrialized countries take for granted. Resources for mitigating risk
and coping with explicit threats include social safety nets, public and private research,
extension agencies, weather offices, crop insurance, marketing boards, and lending
agencies.
Many such services are, in theory, available to producers in tropical countries. But
the sheer numbers of farmers to be served from severely limited resources precludes
widescale, equitable coverage. FAO estimates the agricultural population of the developed
countries at 100 million, or 7.6 percent of their total population (2000 figure). For the
developing world, the figure is 2.47 billion, or more than half its total population. So,
for every person in the developed world who needs agricultural support services, there are
some 25 such clients in developing countries.
That is half the story. The other major element is public fiscal capacity to provide
key agricultural services like research. A recent report by the International Food Policy
Research Institute (IFPRI) reveals the
enormous fiscal gap between the developing and developed countries. During the 3-year
period centering on 1995, the annual average expenditure on public research per
economically active person in the agricultural sector of the developing world was $8.50
(1993 US dollars). For the developed countries, the figure was $594.10.
One final factor, frequently glossed over in discussion of risk management, is human
health. Rural people in the tropics are typically exposed to a dangerous mix of infectious
and vector-borne diseases, occupational hazards, and poor nutrition. Malaria,
schistosomiasis, sleeping sickness, and diarrheal diseases are afflictions that canola
farmers in Canada or vineyard owners in France rarely give a thought to. And, for
pharmaceutical companies, they occupy low-level slots on the drug-development agenda. Yet
these diseases remain chronically serious in the tropics, particularly Africa. AIDS,
pesticide poisoning, iron-deficiency anemia, and mycotoxin contamination of food likewise
take a heavy toll in developing countries, reducing the resilience of farm families.
Information as power
Visit our Land Use Web site
While a few such generalizations about the vulnerability of rural people in the tropics
are possible, risks vary markedly with time and location. As well, human responses to
risks and threats differ according to the level at which they are taken: global, regional,
national, or local. As CIAT environmental scientist Manuel Winograd notes, this
variability of risk and response demands a concerted research effort if developing
countries are to systematically and successfully cope with their vulnerabilities. As a
starting point, he says, they need reliable methods for collecting, organizing, and using
information to map and assess risks.
“The absence of planning as to how land should be used and where human populations
and infrastructure should be located, along with failure to apply precautionary
principles, are the main causes of increased risk and vulnerability,” says Winograd.
“Policies, strategies, and actions are oriented more toward dealing with the
consequences of crises than to preventing them.” In recent years CIAT has designed
many information tools to help rural communities and public officials deal with issues
like land use planning, biodiversity conservation, soil management, and natural disaster
mitigation. While some are simple text-based decision guides, others are CD-ROM-based
software packages requiring substantial training and data sets to operate. Such
knowledge-intensive products, usually aimed at development advisers, rarely have as direct
an impact on natural resource management at the farmer level as our germplasm has had on
agricultural production. Yet information is power, and demand for it is growing remarkably
fast.
Seed-based germplasm is “biological information packaged in a form suitable for
broad-based transmission to farmers,” says Simon Cook, manager of CIAT’s Land Use Project.
“How can we mimic this process for natural resource management technology? Maps?
Documents? Guides? Web sites? We need to find ways to distribute this information to
users, who are generally community leaders, development professionals, or government
officials. While the insights contained in new information tools may be incredibly useful,
farmers cannot adopt them directly as they can improved varieties. What we’re
searching for is the NRM equivalent of the seed.”
In the meantime, CIAT continues to work on a variety of ways to help small tropical
producers cope with risk. As two of the following articles illustrate, these include
progress toward “solutions-in-a-seed,” specifically drought tolerance in beans
and enhanced micronutrient content of staple crops. The other two articles look at the use
of computer models to estimate the likely impact of climate change on crops and the
building of community resilience in Bolivia through farmer participatory research.
Seeds of Health
Combating micronutrient malnutrition through crop biofortification
A new research program to boost the vitamin and mineral content of the world’s
staple foods is expected to improve the health of millions of poor people in tropical
countries. Micronutrient malnutrition, especially lack of iron, zinc, and vitamin A,
currently afflicts more than half the world’s population. So the potential benefits
of this major international R&D undertaking are enormous.
The transdisciplinary effort to “biofortify” crops is a major intercenter
collaborative effort and a candidate for the Challenge Programs to be launched by the
CGIAR. The program combines plant genomics and breeding with human nutrition science,
social behavior studies, and policy analysis. It draws on the substantial experience
gained over the past 7 years by the CGIAR’s Micronutrients Project, results of which
indicate that biofortification is highly feasible for most crops.
The program is intended to complement more conventional measures, such as distribution
of vitamin and mineral supplements and commercial fortification of processed foods.
Indeed, agricultural and health experts widely recognize that there is no single magic
bullet that will wipe out micronutrient malnutrition. Multiple, interlocking strategies
are needed.
The priority crops of the new program are common beans, cassava, maize, rice, sweet
potatoes, and wheat. By the end of the project, micronutrient levels in these crops are
expected to be at least 80 percent greater than current levels. Researchers will also
conduct prebreeding studies to build the necessary knowledge base for biofortifying
bananas, barley, cowpeas, groundnuts, lentils, millet, pigeon peas, plantains, potatoes,
sorghum, and yams.
The program is coordinated jointly by CIAT and the International Food Policy Research
Institute (IFPRI) in Washington, D.C.
CIAT plays two roles. First, it provides overall coordination of the breeding and related
biotechnology work carried out by a consortium of seven Future Harvest centers in
collaboration with selected national research programs in developing countries. And
second, CIAT scientists conduct micronutrient research on two crops: beans and cassava,
the latter in partnership with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria. IFPRI coordinates the
human nutrition and policy research components, while Michigan State University in the
USA will provide leadership in nutritional genomics research in collaboration with other
advanced research institutes in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and North America.
As illustrated in the rest of this article, CIAT has been working hard to integrate its
long-standing expertise in plant breeding with that in molecular biology, as a way to tap
the genetically based micronutrient potential of beans and cassava.
Breeding iron-clad beans
Visit our Bean Improvement Web site
Iron deficiency anemia afflicts an estimated 1.5 billion people in developing
countries, most of them women, reducing mental ability, creating severe complications at
childbirth, and lowering physical capacity. Zinc deficiency, though less well understood,
is also known to be widespread in the tropics and is a major threat to children’s
growth and health.
In analyzing the content of these minerals in common bean, CIAT scientists have
examined new breeding populations as well as a much wider collection of nearly 2,000
genotypes. In addition, our research collaborators at the University of Nairobi analyzed the
mineral content of a set of 70 commercial and farmer-bred bean varieties from six African
countries.
The results have provided CIAT and other scientists with a substantial inventory of
mineral-rich bean cultivars. Scientists working jointly with NGOs will soon test some of
these high-iron beans in a nutritional efficacy trial involving Kenyan and Ugandan
communities at high risk of iron-deficiency anemia. The beans will be combined with
vitamin A-enriched sweet potatoes developed by the International Potato Center (CIP), allowing researchers to examine
the synergistic effects of the two micronutrients in a biofortified diet.
This work in Africa is part of a 3-year project funded by the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID),
which has taken a lead role in crop biofortification. A component of the CGIAR Challenge
Program on biofortification, the work brings together several African research groups and Cornell University.
CIAT research has shown that beans possess enough genetic variability—the
scientific elbow room so valued by breeders—to make further improvements in iron and
zinc content. It has been estimated that breeding could comfortably improve iron content
by about 80 percent and zinc by 40 percent.
To exploit the genetic potential of beans, CIAT scientists have produced a series of
potentially mineral-rich bean populations for chemical analysis and further improvement.
Two recognized sources of high iron and zinc content were recruited in the
“backcrossing” experiments through which this germplasm was developed. One was a
wild Mexican bean, the other a cultivated variety, known respectively in seed bank
parlance as accessions G 10022 and G 14519. These were crossed with several other popular
varieties, which served as “recurrent” parents. (In recurrent backcrossing,
hybrid progeny are repeatedly crossed with one of the original parents to weed out
undesirable traits over several generations.)
Chemical analysis of these materials revealed that plants with high iron levels also
tended to have a lot of zinc. This suggests that the accumulation of both minerals in
beans is to some extent controlled by the same sets of interacting minor genes, known as
quantitative trait loci, or QTLs. Thus, breeders may be able to select for iron and zinc
simultaneously.
Molecular mapping of micronutrients
Parallel CIAT work based on molecular marker technology supports that view. The
molecular mapping work for micronutrient content focused on two bean populations bred for
high iron and zinc concentrations. One was a cross between two Andean bean types, the
other between two Mesoamerican types. CIAT bean geneticist Matthew Blair and colleagues
developed a genetic map for each population, one containing 119 molecular markers and the
other 98 markers.
These maps enabled the researchers to identify a number of QTLs linked to the
accumulation of iron and zinc. The most significant QTLs accounted for up to 33 percent of
the variance in iron content and 37 percent for zinc. While some of the QTLs were specific
to either iron or zinc, others were positive for both minerals. These double-duty QTLs
were found on five chromosomes in the Andean population and on three chromosomes in the
Mesoamerican beans.
The next step for Blair and his colleagues is to zero in on certain parts of the genome
to find out whether the genes for higher mineral content occur at the same locations in
other selected bean populations. “We now need to translate the results of our QTL
studies into a practical marker-assisted selection scheme,” says Blair. To this end
he and his colleagues plan to integrate the mapped locations of the QTLs observed for
micronutrient content with known locations of QTLs responsible for other traits. Then, a
carefully chosen set of microsatellites (a particularly advantageous type of molecular
marker) can be used in marker-assisted selection. This will speed up breeding, allowing
CIAT’s bean improvement team to select simultaneously for high mineral content and
other useful traits, like disease resistance and drought tolerance.
Vitamin A from cassava
Visit our Cassava Improvement Web site (in Spanish)
The World Health Organization
estimates that, worldwide, between 100 and 140 million children suffer from vitamin A
deficiency. Every year it causes 250,000 to 500,000 children to go blind, and about half
of them die within a year.
Animal products, mothers’ milk, and many edible plants are rich sources of vitamin
A. In plants carotenes, especially beta-carotene, serve as chemical building blocks, or
“precursors,” of vitamin A. These pigments are abundant in dark-green leafy
vegetables and in yellow or orange fruits and root crops, including some types of cassava.
Cassava roots provide lots of calories to consumers in the tropics, but they do not
contain enough carotene to supply the minimum amount of vitamin A needed for good health.
While the leaves are up to 100 times richer in carotenes than the roots, and in some
cultures are eaten as a fresh vegetable, they account for only a tiny fraction of total
cassava consumption.
CIAT research has shown, nevertheless, that cassava possesses significant genetic
variation for micronutrient content, both of carotenes and minerals. Recent work in this
area has been funded by Danish International Development Assistance (Danida). We are confident that, as in
the case of beans, we can exploit this natural advantage through traditional germplasm
screening, marker-assisted selection, and other methods.
The opportunities and challenges involved in biofortifying cassava are somewhat
different, though, from those encountered in bean improvement. To begin with, the long
reproductive cycle of this crop makes for slow progress in crossing and selection.
Breeding is further complicated by the “heterozygous” nature of cassava. This
refers to the fact that in a matching pair of cassava chromosomes, a given gene on one
chromosome is not identical to the corresponding gene on the other chromosome. As a
result, it is quite difficult to use standard crossing methods to reorder genes in such a
way that specific, valued plant traits are systematically passed from one generation to
the next. Even so, an increasing measure of control is being gained through the use of
molecular marker technology.
Fishing for carotene genes
Genetic transformation is a faster way to produce beta-carotene-rich cassava, and CIAT
is currently investigating this option. In this type of plant engineering, beta-carotene
genes from one cassava genotype would be cloned and inserted into another cassava
genotype.
To do this we first need to improve our understanding of the “carotene
pathway,” the biochemical process by which cassava plants synthesize and regulate
root beta-carotene. CIAT biotechnologists have therefore been studying the cassava genes
responsible for the four enzymes that manufacture beta-carotene. These enzymes are widely
found in other organisms like flowers and bacteria, and the DNA sequences of the genes
that encode for them are public knowledge.
During 2001 we used those sequences to design PCR primers. (Primers are short fragments
of DNA that complement the chemical structure of target genes and lock onto them—a
bit like the action of a zipper.) This allowed us to successfully amplify the four target
genes from the DNA of two cassava samples, one with high carotene content, the other low
in carotene. Some amplified DNA fragments have now been cloned for comparison and further
analysis. Thus, the stage is set to “fish out” the enzyme-related genes needed
to transform cassava into a better source of vitamin A. CIAT’s analytical work has
correlated carotene content with a difficulty faced by all cassava farmers: postproduction
physiological deterioration, or PPD. “This oxidation process is a major bottleneck in
cassava production and processing,” says Hernán Ceballos, manager of CIAT’s Cassava Project. Although cassava roots keep
well when left attached to the plant in the soil, they quickly rot when harvested and
exposed to the air.
Some CIAT results suggest that high carotene content is linked to lower rates of root
deterioration. Four cassava genotypes have been identified that show both high root
carotene and low rates of deterioration. “These findings are very important,”
says Ceballos. “It means we can use the low PPD rate of yellow, vitamin-A-rich
cassava as a selling point to farmers—as long as we also ensure the cassava has a
good agronomic background.”
Beans with a “Hope in Hell”
Visit our Bean Improvement Web site
Scientific perseverance yields elite beans that stand up to drought
After nearly a quarter century of research, CIAT scientists have succeeded in breeding
drought-tolerant beans that also incorporate other traits important to farmers. The work
is now in the varietal development stage.
The achievement is significant because drought is a widespread threat to agriculture
and a common cause of crop failure and hunger. It is thought to affect about 60 percent of
global bean production. In Latin America, a major bean-growing region, an estimated 3
million hectares of the crop suffer from moderate to severe drought most years.
The new beans yield 600 to 750 kilograms per hectare under severe drought. This is
roughly double the maximum yield that Latin American farmers currently get from commercial
varieties under the same conditions.
Led by breeder Steve Beebe, CIAT’s bean improvement team used several sources of
drought tolerance to produce the promising new lines. These included several highland
Mexican beans of the Durango race and a southern Colombian farmer variety of Central
American origin. San Cristóbal, a bean from the Dominican Republic that was first
identified in the early 1980s as being a source of stable drought resistance, was also
used.
To see how well the drought tolerance is expressed across different environments, Beebe
and his colleagues assembled a “nursery” of 36 genotypes, the best of the
breeding lines created from the drought-tolerant parents. These were distributed in 2001
to researchers in Colombia, Cuba, Haiti, Honduras, Guatemala, Kenya, Mexico, and Nicaragua
for testing. The first block of results showed good correspondence between drought
tolerance at CIAT headquarters in Colombia and that recorded by the Pan-American School of Agriculture in
Zamorano, Honduras.
The physiology of tolerance
Developing drought-tolerant beans has been a long-term, complex challenge. This is
mainly because drought tolerance in beans and other plants is a genetically complex trait.
It is controlled by several physiological mechanisms, which in turn are orchestrated by
the interactions of many genes.
Greater understanding of the role played by deep-root systems in protecting beans from
drought was a major contribution of CIAT plant physiologist Jeff White in the 1980s. More
recently, a second mechanism has been identified: the ability of some types of beans to
efficiently transport carbohydrates (produced by photosynthesis) from leaves to the edible
grain even under the stress of drought. Many of the details of this process, observed in a
southern Colombian landrace (G 21212), are being worked out by CIAT plant physiologist
Idupulapati Rao, in collaboration with Beebe.
“Nobody at the end of the 1970s believed that common bean had a hope in hell of
showing any drought resistance,” says CIAT agricultural geographer Peter Jones.
“It went against all physiological principles. We were recommended to drop the
problem quite a few times along the way. If we had listened to that advice, nothing would
have happened. It hasn’t cost a fortune, just plain old slogging away.”
Jones and other CIAT scientists note that such continuity in international crop
improvement efforts is crucial to the development of practical technologies for farmers.
The point, says Jones, was reinforced recently by a Central American scientist visiting
the drought-tolerant bean nursery at CIAT. “As we were leaving the field, he said,
‘Thank God for CIAT’s breeding work. There’s not a national program in
Latin America that could have kept this research going for a quarter of a
century’.”
From floods to drought
CIAT’s seed-based solution to what many earlier believed was an intractable
obstacle to higher bean production is particularly timely and relevant for Central
America. Just 3 years ago, Hurricane Mitch killed thousands of people in Honduras and
Nicaragua, flattened homes, and deluged farm fields, destroying bean and other crops in
the process. During the following 2 years, rural people again lived the nightmare of food
and seed scarcity, but because of drought linked to the El Niño/La Niña cycles.
CIAT’s new bean lines, into which other good agronomic traits are now being bred,
will provide long-lasting benefits to this drought-prone, bean-producing region of Latin
America.
We are also collaborating with several NGOs and research organizations to distribute
seed of improved bean varieties in Haiti.
This is part of a major relief project to help this island nation recover from the
September 1998 devastation of Hurricane Georges. Over the next few months, the most
advanced drought-tolerant lines will be sent there for testing.
On a much wider scale, atmospheric warming is expected to increase the intensity and
frequency of drought and other severe weather events in much of the tropics in the coming
decades. Millions of people in Latin America and central, eastern, and southern Africa
depend heavily on beans as a daily source of dietary energy, protein, and micronutrients,
as well as income through sales. The future resilience of their rural livelihoods will
thus depend significantly on reliable access to drought-tolerant bean seeds made available
through CIAT’s work.
Combining strengths
In 2001, CIAT’s bean project took another major step forward when it began
crossing its drought-tolerant bean lines with a selection of other CIAT beans tolerant of
low soil fertility and resistant to major diseases. One of these diseases, the bean golden
yellow mosaic virus (BGYMV), is a serious drawback for Central American bean farmers.
Furthermore, it is directly linked to drought because the whiteflies that transmit BGYMV
thrive in hot, dry conditions.
“We’ve moved from a trait development phase to a varietal development
phase,” says Beebe, stressing how important it is to now combine as many genetic
advantages as possible in the new germplasm.
This multiple-trait breeding work, made more efficient by the use of CIAT-designed
molecular markers linked to specific types of disease resistance, focuses on the small
black-seeded and red-seeded beans so popular in Central America. About 10 percent of the
second-generation plant populations from multiple crosses, plus a selection of six simple
crosses, have proved highly promising. These have been bred to the fourth generation, and
the resulting 200 elite bean populations are now being shared with national research
programs and other collaborators in Central America. Parallel work is targeted on African
bean-growing areas.
Tracking the Impact of Global Warming
Visit our Land Use Web site,
especially the research theme of Biological Mapping
Maize yields on two continents will dip, but local effects will vary widely
Climate change will cause overall annual maize production in Africa and Latin America
to drop about 10 percent by 2055 unless remedial measures are taken. That’s the
prediction of two scientists with CIAT and the International Livestock Research Institute
(ILRI).
“The simulation results are what we would expect if farmers continue to plant the
same varieties in the same areas,” explains CIAT agricultural geographer Peter Jones.
Future changes in crop management and the use of better-adapted varieties should lessen
the blow to maize producers.
Over many years, Jones and ILRI colleague Philip Thornton collaborated on a method for
simulating site-specific daily weather based on data collected by thousands of weather
stations around the world. Their aim was to sharpen the ability of standard crop models to
predict the behavior of food and forage crops under different climatic and crop management
conditions. The fruit of their research effort, a computer tool called MarkSim, was first
tested in 2000 and will soon be released by CIAT on CD-ROM.
The researchers went a step further by using MarkSim to predict the effects of climate
change on crops. They combined MarkSim and a well-known crop model, Ceres-Maize, with a
climate-change model called HadCM2, which maps probable future temperatures around the
world. Their initial simulation test, described in last year’s CIAT in Perspective,
examined future changes in yields of a popular maize variety at specific sites in
southeastern Africa. More recently, Jones and Thornton expanded the analysis to cover all
of Africa and Central and South America. They also increased the number of maize varieties
to four, to better simulate smallholders’ cropping decisions under different soil and
climatic conditions.
Zeroing in on local effects
The latest simulations suggest that the agricultural impact of rising temperatures and
shifting rainfall patterns in the tropics and subtropics will vary widely from one
agroecosystem to another and between countries. For example, in wet highland tropical
environments of Africa and Latin America, maize yields could increase by 4 to 12 percent
over yields simulated for 1990 (the baseline year). Dry lowland tropical areas, in
contrast, could see reductions of about 25 percent. “It’s the local effects that
are going to hit farmers hard,” says Jones.
In the dry lowlands, temperatures will rise above the optimum for maize, and rainfall
may decrease. Large parts of Northeast Brazil and its savannas (the Cerrados) fall into
this category. “The areas where yields will increase are very limited,” says
Jones, “and comprise only some well-watered highland areas and a coastal region in
southern Brazil and Uruguay.”
Farmers in three of Africa’s major maize-growing countries—Nigeria, South
Africa, and Tanzania—would experience maize yield losses in the neighborhood of 15 to
19 percent under this business-as-usual scenario. Yields in Côte d’Ivoire and
Ethiopia, however, would remain more or less stable to midcentury. In Brazil, South
America’s leading maize producer, yields would drop
25 percent. But in Mexico, the second largest producer, the reduction would be a little
less than one-third of that. Only in Chile and in Ecuador are yields expected to hold
their own or increase due to climate change.
Research on global climate change needs to continue zeroing in on local effects,
according to Jones. This will make it possible to arm the poorest and most vulnerable
people, those who depend on small-scale agriculture, with site-specific coping strategies.
At the same time, scientists need to begin analyzing the impact on whole farming systems,
not just single crops in isolation. Future CIAT work will therefore expand the application
of MarkSim and related tools to other staple crops and production systems.
Urgency of adaptation
The CIAT-ILRI maize-modeling work is just one component of a wider international effort
to better understand the interactions between tropical agriculture and climate change.
CIAT is an active member of the Inter-Center Working Group on Climate Change of the CGIAR.
The Group is currently formulating a multidisciplinary research agenda that will form the
centerpiece of a major proposal for consideration under the new CGIAR Challenge Programs.
In early 2002, CIAT also integrated its various climate change activities into a coherent,
high-priority effort. This will allow for better scientific coordination both within CIAT
and with our institutional partners.
Research on climate change is important for two reasons. First, it will help farmers
and policy makers to cope with the impending negative effects of global warming. Second,
it will contribute to the development of land-use patterns and farming
technologies—so-called mitigation strategies—that help slow the buildup of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
“People in the temperate zones have ambivalent feelings about climate
change,” says Jones. “Yes, it will bring some uncertainty to their lives. But it
also means an increase in temperature of two or three degrees, and for many people that
would be rather nice. But when you think about the tropics, it’s a completely
different story. For some tropical crops, there will be nowhere to go.”
Much of the world’s rice, for example, is being grown in areas that are already at
the temperature tolerance of this staple cereal crop. Global warming could seriously
jeopardize flowering and result in major crop failures.
“It’s not a situation where we can sit back and say, ‘we’ll only do
something concrete when climate change really starts to happen’,” Jones
stresses. “A ton-per-hectare yield loss when you’re only getting 1.5 tons of
maize to begin with will be catastrophic! That’s not to say we can’t do
something about it. But we have to act now. We’ve also got to get policy makers to
realize there could be major upheavals in agriculture.”
His message of urgency echoes that of the most authoritative international body on the
topic, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In its Third Assessment Report (TAR), published in 2001, the
panel says that, in the absence of mitigation measures, the world’s average surface
temperature will likely rise by 1.4 to 5.8 degrees C by the end of this century. That
would be the fastest rate of change in at least the past 10,000 years. The effects of
global warming, it says, are already being seen on physical and biological systems:
shrinking glaciers, earlier egg-laying by birds, and poleward migration of some plants and
animals.
The IPCC foresees significant and irreversible damage to natural systems such as coral
reefs and polar ecosystems and greater risk of extinction of vulnerable plant and animal
species. Water stress is expected to worsen in many arid and semiarid areas. In the
tropics and subtropics, crop yields are expected to fall even with small temperature
increases.
As University College researcher
Joanna Depledge recently noted in a review of the IPCC report: “A key recurrent
message is that developing countries will be hardest hit by climate change, as they are
more vulnerable to its adverse impacts and have less capacity to adapt.”
Permanent Participation
Visit our Participatory Research Web site
Institutionalizing farmer research committees in Bolivia
Farmers in the tropics are tireless inventors and skilled experimenters—with
crops, trees, livestock, soil, water, fertilizers, and farm equipment. This necessity of
rural life represents a valuable social resource that for many years was unfortunately
overlooked or underestimated by R&D organizations.
Recognition that local knowledge systems, backed by formal science, can be a powerful
tool for socioeconomic progress is at the root of a bold experiment in participatory
research that CIAT launched 11 years ago in Colombia. Our system of local agricultural
research committees, or CIALs (the Spanish acronym), has since spread to seven other Latin
American countries. As a vehicle for rural empowerment, it has been embraced by hundreds
of farming communities, who have helped CIAT refine the system. But it is also being
adopted as an organizational model by R&D organizations that support farmers.
“Although our CIAL is a small organization, it’s very important to us,”
says Bolivian potato farmer Roberto Merino Montaño, a member of the Primera
Candelaria CIAL, based in the township of Colomi. “Technicians come and go, but
we’re always here. Right now our mentality is to get ahead, to enter the
markets.”
Of the more than 250 farmer-research committees currently operating in Latin America,
about 10 percent are in Bolivia. The quest for a better rural livelihood by Merino and his
fellow farmer-researchers—in this case via farm-based potato experiments that will
help the rural community tap new market opportunities—typifies the aspirations of
millions of small farmers in Latin America.
A demanding job
In brief, a CIAL is an agricultural research service owned by and accountable to the
community, usually at the village level. Local citizens elect a small group of farmers
known for their ability and interest in experimentation and their community spirit.
Through public meetings, the community diagnoses the priority problem or issue to be
tackled. The CIAL then carries out the experiments to establish the best technical options
for farmers. Technicians from a public agency or NGO advise the farmers on experiment
design and results analysis. In some cases farmers trained as paraprofessional researchers
serve this function. Research results are systematically reported back to the community by
CIAL members.
Being an active member of a CIAL is a demanding job that cannot help but compete with
farm, family, and other responsibilities. Merino, for example, has to travel regularly in
rural areas to farmer field days and other events. At the same time, he is enrolled in a
distance education program at the Universidad Católica Boliviana to become a rural
teacher. To make ends meet, Merino works 7 days a week. Besides taking care of his own
potato plots, he works on neighboring farms to earn extra income of about US$3 a day.
While the day-to-day demands of being both a farmer and community activist are heavy,
Merino is clearly inspired by the potential of his CIAL to make a difference in the
community. “We’re conducting this trial because native potato varieties face a
serious risk of extinction in this area. In the past seed was planted on land that had
been fallow for 20 years, land that was rested and fertile. Today we cannot leave land so
long without planting because of the growing population. Many people occupy the same land,
and to leave the land to rest is a luxury we can’t afford.”
While just a few decades ago farms in the area averaged about 10 hectares, today each
family has only a tiny fraction of that as a result of farms being divided up among
children from one generation to the next. For Bolivia’s overall potato-growing
population of some 200,000 families, the average holding is currently about two-thirds of
a hectare. Thus, finding more productive potato varieties that also have strong consumer
appeal is critical to the livelihoods of these small farmers.
“We’re now testing 35 potato varieties on land that has been continually
sown,” says Merino. On some of the new potato plots, farmers have recently harvested
quinoa and barley, for example. As part of their research, the CIAL members assess
production conditions as well as the flavor and cooking time of the harvested tubers.
“We’ve been experimenting with these varieties for 2 years and have had very
good results with several of them.” Farmers like the variety pinta boca
(mouth paint), so named because when you eat this potato, it leaves your mouth a violet
color. Another variety is the reddish colored puca candelero. In Quechua, puca
means “red,” and it is called candelero (candlestick) because of its
shape.
Moving to the next level
With the effectiveness of the CIAL method now well established, CIAT has turned its
attention in recent years to second-generation issues. These
“institutionalization” aspects include the financial and social sustainability
of existing CIALs, mechanisms for scaling up the method to achieve wider impact in Latin
America and beyond, and participatory methods of monitoring and evaluation. This last
component involves design and use of multiple feedback loops, among farmer-researchers,
community members, technical advisors, municipal and other government planners, and CIAT.
But, as Jacqueline Ashby, director of CIAT’s new Rural Innovation Institute and
chief architect of the CIAL concept, points out, each country is different and solutions
will therefore vary. In some instances, second-order organizations—associations of
farmer committees at the provincial or national level, for example—will be the main
vehicle for sustaining the CIAL approach and ensuring farmers’ voices are heard by
authorities. This is the pattern emerging in Colombia and Honduras. In other countries,
such as Bolivia, new municipal structures can serve as the institutional base. In all
cases the role of public research institutes, universities, and NGOs will continue to be
critical in providing scientific, organizational, and financial advice to
farmer-researchers.
As in many developing nations, the government of Bolivia has restructured its public
agricultural research system in recent years. The current watchwords are demand-driven
services and fiscal responsibility. To these ends, semiautonomous organizations (fundaciones)
have been set up to respond to producer, processor, and consumer needs through contracted
R&D. CIALs are among the various research-service providers that may submit proposals
for funding, mainly in the area of adaptive research.
Combining forces
One such organization is Fundación PROINPA, the
Foundation for Promotion and Investigation of Andean Products. Originally launched in 1989
as the potato research program of Bolivia’s national agricultural research institute,
it was reconstituted in 1998 as a national development center for Andean crops.
Over the years, PROINPA has helped Bolivian farmers more than double potato yields,
from 4 to 9 tons per hectare. It has also been a key CIAT partner and promoter of the CIAL
methodology in Bolivia. It provides technical and other support to 10 of the
country’s 23 CIALs, including Roberto Merino’s group, Primera Candelaria.
Under new national legislation, the so-called Law of People’s Participation and
the Law of Dialog, municipalities are charged with responding to local development demands
to improve people’s living conditions. Grassroots organizations called sindicatos,
into which CIALs will be integrated, are being set up to represent community concerns.
These changes provide all Bolivians with a government-sanctioned window of opportunity for
rural advancement. They will allow the practical inventiveness of CIALs and the scientific
expertise of organizations like PROINPA to be meshed with the development projects of
municipal governments throughout the country.
Perspectives on Research Impact
Visit our Impact Assessment Web site
Assessing the risks of transgenic crops
Besides evaluating past and future research, CIAT’s
Impact Assessment Unit also monitors trends influencing agricultural science. In 2001,
Center economist and research director Douglas Pachico compared three regulatory
structures set up to assess the risks of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), including
transgenic crops.
By 2000, GM crops occupied some 45 million hectares of farmland worldwide. Transgenic
soybean, cotton, canola, and maize account for most of the area. Top producers are the
USA, Argentina, and Canada, with substantial areas also planted in China, Australia, and
South Africa. All populated continents except Europe now have significant sowings of GM
crops.
Enormous benefits from GM technology have been predicted for both industrialized and
developing nations. There is, nevertheless, growing international concern over the
environmental and human health risks posed by transgenic crops. Gene flow into wild
relatives is a major worry for the environment. So is the possibility of transgenic plants
becoming superweeds.
CIAT’s recent comparative review examined the environmental risk assessment
principles and regulations of the Biosafety Protocol of the Convention on Biological
Diversity, as well as those of the USA and European Union.
The Biosafety Protocol is an international agreement reached in 2000 by over
130 governments. It focuses on the cross-border movement of GMOs destined for release into
the environment and regulates the mutual rights and responsibilities of importers and
exporters.
A guiding principle of the Biosafety Protocol is the precautionary approach set out in
the 1992 Rio Declaration. In practice this means the burden of proof is on the exporter to
demonstrate scientifically that the GMOs will not have unacceptable or unmanageable
adverse effects.
The Protocol lays out a procedure of advance notification and informed consent.
Exporters supply the biosafety regulatory authorities of importing countries with the
scientific information needed to approve or reject a request to import. The Protocol does
not require the exporter to demonstrate complete absence of risk, and it allows for
socioeconomic benefits to be considered in the regulatory decision. What constitutes an
acceptable or manageable risk is left to the judgment of importing countries.
The European Union’s directive on deliberate release of GMOs into the environment
differs from the Biosafety Protocol in several respects. While it too adopts the
precautionary approach, it is much more specific about the scientific questions to be
addressed in the risk assessment. In addition, it covers issues such as product labeling,
postrelease monitoring of GMOs, and risk management strategies.
Unlike the Protocol, the European framework does not make provision for including the
potential socioeconomic benefits in decision-making. It focuses squarely on avoiding
increased risk to human health and the environment.
The USA is the largest producer of GM crops. About 50 crop varieties have gone through
that country’s regulatory system over the past decade. Three government bodies share
responsibility for GMO assessment and regulation. Separate approval is needed from each
before a GM crop can be commercialized.
As in Europe the US system spells out the specific scientific information and testing
required to ensure there is no significant risk to people, other animals and plants, and
the environment.
Assessments cover many factors such as potential for gene transfer to wild relatives
and for weediness; allergenicity and toxicity of GM foods; and impact on other organisms.
While the first generation of transgenic crops in the USA and elsewhere has benefited
producers more than consumers, future gene combinations are expected to take better
account of consumer needs like nutritional content. Boosting vitamin A in cassava, a key
food staple of the poor in many tropical countries, is one application of GM technology
now being investigated by CIAT.
We have also developed transgenic rice that resists rice hoja blanca virus (RHBV), a
major hurdle to rice production in Latin America. Experimental genotypes are now being
field tested under strict biosafety conditions. Our planning of future transgenic research
needs to take into account the costs and benefits of such biosafety procedures and risk
assessments.
“CIAT recognizes that there are environmental risks involved in transgenic
crops,” says Douglas Pachico. “We cannot allow a technically feasible transgenic
solution to be deployed if it creates other problems. We need to take a rational look at
those risks.” In some instances, he says, the costs of risk assessment and other
regulatory compliance, as well as those involved in gaining access to patented technology,
“may be so high, and the process may take such a long time, that it isn’t worth
pursuing the transgenic research.”
As CIAT seeks technological options for alleviating rural poverty, we must keep our
finger on the pulse of the evolving regulatory climate. Reviewing GM risk assessment
measures is but one element in an ongoing effort to cultivate the institutional foresight
demanded by successful, cost-effective science.
Costs and benefits of farmer participation
Participatory research methods and gender analysis now figure prominently in the work
of the Future Harvest centers funded by
the CGIAR. Center resources devoted to
these approaches amounted to US$66.2 million in 2000 and the equivalent of 145 full-time
staff.
“This is a sizable body of effort, certainly comparable to that of an individual
center,” says Nina Lilja, an economist with the CGIAR’s Participatory Research
and Gender Analysis (PRGA)
Program. Recent and rapid adoption of participatory approaches has prompted the PRGA
Program, which CIAT hosts, to begin analyzing their benefits and costs.
With funding from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Cooperation and Economic
Development (BMZ), Lilja and two CIAT
colleagues, Nancy Johnson and Jacqueline Ashby, recently examined the impact of farmer
participation in natural resource management research. They chose three completed projects
as case studies. Two projects, during the 1990s, were led by Future Harvest centers: the
International Potato Center (CIP)
and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). The third was a project by
the international NGO, World Neighbors, that spanned the 1980s.
CIP’s project centered on the design of integrated crop management (ICM) methods
for sweet potato production in Indonesia. Farmers actively participated in all stages of
the project, including the development of curricula for farmer field schools.
ICRISAT’s project in Malawi tested legume-based technologies for managing soil
fertility. “Mother” experiments designed and executed by researchers were
replicated on-farm as “baby” experiments by participating villagers. The project
supported by World Neighbors in Honduras promoted soil conservation practices in 41
communities.
A key finding of the impact analysis was that, while participatory methods do in fact
result in more suitable technologies and greater adoption by farmers, they also give rise
to learning and change. Among the benefits are the new skills and knowledge gained by
individual farmers (so-called human capital) and the emergence of organizational capacity
for innovation and action at the community level (social capital). In addition, partner
research organizations benefit from collaboration with farmers. Insights and participant
feedback sometimes lead these institutions to reset research priorities and improve
R&D strategies.
“There are benefits to participatory research over and above the actual technology
options eventually offered to farmers,” says study coauthor and PRGA Program
coordinator Jacqueline Ashby. “Local participation provides building blocks for rural
people to improve their lives—by being able to articulate their needs, organize
themselves, and apply what they’ve learned to nonagricultural activities.”
The researchers distinguished between two types of participation in the case-study
projects: functional/consultative and empowering/collaborative. With functional
participation formally trained researchers interact with farmers to better understand
their problems, priorities, and preferences. But the researchers still make all key
decisions regarding technology development. The project in Malawi falls into this
category.
The empowering form of participation goes well beyond consultation. Farmers make
decisions about the project focus, objectives, and design, and they are deeply involved in
research execution. Researchers work hand in hand with farmers to develop individual and
community capacity for local experimentation and innovation. Both the Honduran and
Indonesian projects promoted this type of participation to varying degrees.
In all three projects, farmer input influenced the technology development process and
provided useful feedback to the R&D institutions leading the projects. The effect on
the direction of technology development was greatest when farmer participation came early
on in the research. In two of the three projects—those in the
empowering/collaborative category—user participation was linked to increased
technology adoption. In the Honduran project, adoption rates in participating villages
ranged from 50 to 100 percent, with an average of 60 percent. In the case of Indonesia,
production data indicate that farmer exposure to the new ICM technologies resulted in
higher per-hectare income from sweet potatoes.
Significant human capital improvements were seen in the Indonesian and Honduran
projects. The consultative approach to participation used by ICRISAT in Malawi generated
fewer agronomic and economic research results, but there were some observable increases in
participants’ individual skills. Moreover, researchers became more adept at adjusting
their methods to elicit input from farmers.
As for the costs paid by research organizations, the study found that participatory
approaches increased expenditures for communications and workshops, field work by
researchers, and researcher training in participatory methods. However, farmers’ own
costs of participation tended to replace and sometimes reduce researcher-related costs.
Furthermore, expenditures on researcher training are essentially start-up costs. As
participatory methods become institutionalized and individual scientists gain experience
with participatory methods, these costs should decline.
The World Neighbors project was the only case study for which it was possible to
roughly estimate cost-effectiveness. For each hectare of land to which farmers applied
soil conservation practices, the project cost was US$208. Similar projects that did not
use the “empowering participation” strategy had much higher costs, ranging from
$845 to $6,000.
Sharing bean genes in Latin America
The smooth flow of seeds and other plant genetic resources across national borders has
long been seen as vital to the design of better food crops and to the fight against rural
poverty around the world. A recent CIAT analysis of the genetic origins and benefits of
improved bean varieties that were derived in whole or in part from material in our
germplasm bank lends credence to that conventional wisdom.
Reported in January 2002, the study lays out the patterns and economic impact of Latin
America’s longstanding international exchanges of bean genes. Its authors conclude
that nearly three-quarters of the more than US$1 billion in regional benefits gained from
planting improved CIAT-related varieties of common bean between 1970 and 1998 can be
attributed to foreign genetic material.
CIAT agronomist Oswaldo Voysest analyzed the pedigrees of hundreds of commercial
varieties released in Latin America over the past few decades. This allowed him to weight
various countries’ genetic contributions to the new varieties. CIAT economists and
coresearchers Nancy Johnson and Douglas Pachico then used price and production figures to
estimate and analyze the economic benefits of these germplasm flows, country by country.
For 11 of the 18 countries in the study, more than 70 percent of the genes present in
released bean varieties originated in other countries. Colombia was the biggest
contributor to the international flow, followed by Mexico, Costa Rica, and El Salvador.
Not surprisingly, the greatest beneficiaries were Brazil and Argentina. These large
countries have long been major bean producers and their breeders rely heavily on foreign
germplasm. Colombia and the Dominican Republic were the only countries where local sources
accounted for more than half the genes making up released varieties.
“Clearly, everyone is both borrowing and lending germplasm for mutual
benefit,” says Johnson who led the study. “Patterns of country interdependence
in sharing bean genes are rather similar to those for maize, rice, and wheat.”
The emerging, often thorny issue of intellectual property rights over plant genes was
one of several factors that led CIAT to conduct the study. On the one hand, international
agreements like the Convention on Biological Diversity explicitly recognize national
ownership of these resources. They call for greater fairness in the exchange and use of
genetic materials, a domain that until recently was largely unregulated except for
measures to prevent the spread of disease. On the other hand, the prospect of countries
attempting unilaterally to profit from plant gene sales presents clear dangers. As the
CIAT authors note in their 2002 study report, such behavior could end up restricting the
international flow of germplasm.
The study findings echo those of earlier CIAT research which analyzed the potential
benefits of introducing an international system of germplasm royalties. Under such a
scheme, user countries would pay source countries a fee, proportional to the latter’s
genetic contribution to the commercial variety being planted. The analysis concluded that,
overall, the economic gains from planting better crop varieties would far outweigh those
from any royalty scheme, even at the generous rate of 10 percent of local seed prices.
Thus, if any future royalty scheme is to have a positive net effect—namely, a
combination of just payment for germplasm and continued improvements in agricultural
productivity—it must be designed to promote, not hinder, gene sharing.
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