A Market-oriented Strategy for Bean Improvement in Africa
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Improvement Web site
CIAT and partner organizations are making rapid progress in combining
popular African varieties of common bean with advanced breeding materials that yield well,
resist diseases and insect pests, and stand up to physical stresses like drought and poor
soil fertility. This large-scale crossing work, begun in 2000, is a key component of a new
market-driven bean improvement strategy for eastern, central, and southern Africa.
The common bean is a major source of protein, fiber, and micronutrients in the African
diet. In the Great Lakes region of East Africa, for example, bean consumption is 66
kilograms per person per year, one of the highest levels in the world. With a protein
content of about 22 percent, beans are a natural complement to carbohydrate-rich staples
like bananas, maize, and sorghum, which African farmers often intercrop with beans.
Common bean possesses enormous genetic variation. Over the centuries, this diversity
within the species has been exploited by farmers, and more recently by formal plant
breeders, to produce a vast array of bean-seed colors, shapes, sizes, tastes, and cooking
qualities. However, many popular bean types do not yield well, particularly under pressure
of diseases, such as angular leafspot, root rots, and other stresses.
Our collaborators in the refocused regional program are the University of Nairobi and
two research associations: the Eastern and Central Africa Bean Research Network (ECABREN) and the Southern Africa Bean Research
Network (SABRN). The two networks, comprising national research programs, universities,
and NGOs, together form the Pan-African Bean Research Alliance (PABRA). Funding is
provided by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Swiss Agency
for Development and Cooperation (SDC),
the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID).
The coordinators of national bean programs in Africa surveyed markets in 2000 to
determine the main types of beans being grown and sold in their countries and the key
constraints on production. The results helped them select the seven most important market
classes of beans for accelerated improvement. Since African farmers and other bean
consumers are very particular about seed color, that trait provides a practical means of
dividing beans into distinct market classes.
In most of Africa’s bean-growing regions, red beans win hands down, accounting for
about half the sown area. These include the red mottled beans, small red beans, and large
red kidney beans. The next most important grouping, accounting for 16 percent of land
devoted to bean cultivation, is white beans, consisting of small navy beans, especially
for export and local canning industries, and large white kidney beans.
Under the new bean improvement strategy, focusing on major market classes of beans,
plant breeders are developing resistance to multiple production constraints at the same
time. In the case of eastern and central Africa, the breeding work is shared among ECABREN
members, with strong support from CIAT and the University of Nairobi.
For each of several market classes and subclasses identified, the regional program
assembled a working collection of germplasm for crossing. Consisting of both local
commercial varieties and promising breeding lines under development, these collections
come from two main sources: CIAT and national bean programs. Since bean preferences vary
widely among African countries and markets, breeding and evaluation for each priority
market class is led by a national team that has a particular need for, or experience with,
that type of bean. Test sites were selected to represent the major bean-growing
environments for each market class. Small groups of local bean growers participate in
on-farm tests.
CIAT researchers have made crosses for several market classes, and these have been
evaluated for yield and resistance to disease and other stresses at various locations. For
example, in Kenya more than 300 crosses were successfully made to improve eastern
Africa’s most widely grown and marketed variety of large red kidney bean, Canadian
Wonder. This variety, despite its popularity, gives low yields and is susceptible to
angular leafspot disease, anthracnose, and root rots. Various sources of resistance and of
higher yield were used as parents in the crosses. Selections from the crosses were
evaluated in Kenya, Tanzania (the lead program), and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Molecular Markers in the War on Cassava Mosaic Disease
Visit our Cassava Improvement Web site (in Spanish)
A single, dominant gene that makes some Nigerian cassava varieties highly resistant to
cassava mosaic disease (CMD) is being harnessed to confer that trait on elite varieties
destined for Africa, India, and Latin America. Tests by CIAT during 2001 also confirmed
that the CMD2 gene is effective against an aggressive form of CMD that resulted in crop
failure and famine in parts of Uganda in the 1990s. The Ugandan variant of CMD virus
continues to spread in central and eastern Africa. CIAT geneticist Martin Fregene and
colleagues have identified several molecular markers associated with CMD resistance. The
cassava in their study was provided by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture
(IITA) in Nigeria. Some of the markers
identified are simple-sequence repeats (SSRs). These give scientists a reliable, fast, and
inexpensive way to screen for valuable genes without observing the corresponding
phenotype—a technique know as marker-assisted selection (MAS).
One marker associated with the CMD2 gene accounts for more than 80 percent of
the phenotypic variance in CMD resistance observed in the plants with which the study was
conducted. The gene is called CMD2 because it is the second resistance gene found
so far. IITA breeder Alfred Dixon was the first to observe that several local landraces,
or farmer varieties—designated the TME series by IITA—showed good resistance to
CMD.
The first source of resistance, discovered 3 decades ago, is the wild cassava species Manihot
glaziovii. It was crossed with cultivated cassava, providing the basis for
IITA’s initial lines of CMD-resistant cassava, the TMS series developed in the 1970s.
Although these breeding lines have a good measure of resistance, TMS plants under heavy
CMD pressure often develop disease symptoms.
Under an IITA-CIAT project launched in 1996 with Rockefeller Foundation funding, four crosses were developed for
tagging genes that control resistance to CMD. One of the crosses was made at CIAT by
hybridizing the TMS source of resistance with a susceptible Latin American variety. The
other three were made at IITA, with two using the TME varieties as the resistance source.
In 1999 Fregene and CIAT virologist Lee Calvert, who were collaborating with Alfred Dixon,
visited IITA’s Onne
experiment station in southern Nigeria to field-evaluate the progeny of the CIAT cross
incorporating TMS-type resistance. The plants were growing adjacent to Dixon’s TME
experiment.
Fregene and Calvert were disappointed by the uniform appearance of their own plants.
“If there are no differences, then there’s no genetics,” Fregene thought to
himself. “Then, I looked across the fence to the IITA plot. And bingo, there it was!
A lot of variation. One row was in bad shape, the next row in really good condition. The
50/50 division fit the model of a dominant gene for CMD resistance.”
Fregene obtained DNA samples from the IITA plants so he could screen them with markers
from the CIAT molecular genetic map of cassava. The result was the identification of the CMD2
gene. At the same time, virus-free in vitro plantlets were shipped to CIAT in Colombia.
These have since been grown out to produce seed for breeding. Henceforth, only plantlets
bearing the CMD2 markers will be transferred to CIAT’s breeding program.
CMD is found mainly in Africa but also in parts of India. Viral strains vary from one
cassava-growing region to another. In South America, where the root crop originated, CMD
is not yet a problem. However, since the whitefly that transmits the virus is rapidly
spreading in many countries, scientists fear the disease could soon appear in Latin
America and parts of Asia. Thus, CIAT is now including CMD resistance in new lines of
Latin American cassava as a precaution, made possible by the SSR markers.
Brave New Dairying Venture Transforms Upland Villages in the
Philippines
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Web site
It’s a brave farmer that would hunker down every morning to hand milk a buffalo.
The very name conjures up a reputation for awesome strength and unpredictable temperament.
But the buffaloes referred to here are not the lumbering beasts of burden that are a
ubiquitous part of the Southeast Asian countryside. They are bred in India and Pakistan
for their ability to produce milk, and they come with an even worse reputation for
capricious behavior than their hulking relatives. They are, nevertheless, the focal point
of one of the most unlikely dairying ventures in the most unexpected of places.
Former subsistence farmers in Mindanao have formed a rapidly expanding cooperative that
supplies buffalo milk to an eager local market. The venture was sparked by the Forage for
Smallholders Project (FSP),
launched 6 years ago with support from the Australian Agency for International Development
(AusAID). The project is now in
its second phase, under CIAT coordination and with funding from the Asian Development Bank
(ADB). The FSP aims to provide
resource-poor upland farmers in seven countries of Southeast Asia with a range of grass
and tree species that can be grown as crops to provide fodder for livestock while
protecting the soil.
One noteworthy aspect of the FSP is the involvement of farmers themselves in the
research process. Scientists offer groups of farmers a range of forage species that are
suited to tropical conditions and are nutritious for farm animals. The grasses and trees
are planted and managed with expert advice, but the manner in which they are used is up to
the farmers themselves. The consequences have been both successful and surprising.
The village of Pagalungan clings to a wooded ridge in the mountainous countryside west
of the southern Philippines city of Cagayan de Oro. For generations its farmers eked a
gritty existence from sloping fields laid naked by loggers and subsequently cropped to
exhaustion. Their crops of maize, mungbeans, and coconuts provided a bare existence, but
their cattle and buffaloes failed to survive the local shortage of fodder. Every day
farmers had to either lead them long distances over precipitous paths to rough pasture or
cover the same distance to cut fodder and carry it home. Despite such efforts the quality
of the feed was too poor to keep the animals in good health.
That all changed a few years ago when a local veterinary officer, Perla Asis, entered
into collaboration with the FSP. She persuaded about 25 local farmers to plant exotic
forage species around their houses. The grim pallor of poverty has since lifted from
Pagalungan. There are new houses built of concrete, with fibro-cement roofs. The children
are vigorous and bright-eyed. A few hundred feet below the village, the grassy banks of a
swift stony river are dotted with carabao.
At first, the farmers of Pagalungan were unconvinced of the wisdom of planting what
they saw as exotic weeds. But they persevered with the first batch of about 15 different
grasses and legumes and quickly recognized the benefits. With the help of CIAT researchers
and local collaborators, the range of forage species grown at Pagalungan has risen to more
than 30.
The number of farmers cultivating the forage species has grown as quickly as planting
materials have become available. In 1998 a group of 22 farmers formed the Pagalungan
Tribal Settlers’ Multipurpose Cooperative. At last count the membership had grown to
60 and was expanding rapidly.
Each of the dairy buffaloes gives 1 to 4 liters of milk every morning, and at
Pagalungan this currently amounts to about 40 liters a day. The farmers are paid about
US40 cents per liter for milk that they claim is richer and more nutritious than milk from
dairy cattle. As well, they make big lump sums from the occasional sale of unwanted
animals, and there is a big demand for planting material from their forage crops. So
virtually every Pagalungan farmer is involved in the new forage trade.
Gaining Ground on Pasture Spittlebugs
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Recent CIAT research opens up new opportunities for controlling spittlebugs, the most
destructive pests of Latin America’s forage grasses. Our strategy for integrated pest
management (IPM) combines three lines of attack: host-plant resistance, biological
control, and pasture-and-livestock management.
Recent screening of our hybrid Brachiaria grasses, for example, has revealed
15 genotypes with good resistance to at least three spittlebug species. And the
construction of a molecular genetic map of Brachiaria over the past few years has
allowed us to identify two genetic sites (quantitative trait loci, or QTLs) linked to
spittlebug resistance. This is a key step toward using marker-assisted selection to
improve the efficiency of our forage grass breeding.
Spittlebugs have become a grave problem in pastures in Colombia’s Caribbean
coastal area over the past decade, and recently a species from Central America, Prosapia
simulans, has taken a heavy toll on pastures in southwestern Colombia. In this
country alone, the economic losses caused by spittlebugs through reduced beef and milk
production amount to at least US$40 million annually, according to CIAT livestock
specialist Federico Holmann. But the damage extends to a much wider area of beef/dairy
cattle and sugarcane production across Central and South America.
“The problem has actually been around for a very long time,” explains Daniel
Peck, insect ecologist and senior research fellow who leads CIAT’s work on spittlebug bioecology.
“In the latter part of the 19th century, it almost destroyed the sugarcane industry
in Trinidad.” Spittlebugs, he says, also developed an appetite for Brachiaria.
Over several centuries these naturalized grasses, of African origin, have generally
adapted well to the Latin American environment. Today they are planted on millions of
hectares of pastureland, especially in Brazil.
Spittlebugs get their English name from the frothy, saliva-like mass with which insect
nymphs surround themselves as they suck sap from grass plants. Leaves and stems quickly
dry out. And as the pasture infestation progresses year to year, weeds begin to fill the
ecological vacuum.
“Pasture degradation is caused by mismanagement, lack of fertilizer application,
and spittlebugs,” says Carlos Lascano, manager of CIAT’s
Tropical Forages Project. “Farmers have to take cattle out of pasture, and
that’s a big economic loss. The number of animals per hectare is smaller, so farmers
end up converting more forest to pasture to compensate.”
To date, limited host-plant resistance to spittlebugs—such as that found in
Marandú, a popular commercial variety of B. brizantha—has been the only
weapon available to livestock producers. But Marandú is ill-adapted to the acidic,
infertile soils typical of Latin American savannas. CIAT’s new hybrids, however, do
not have this problem, and some of them combine resistance to several spittlebug species
with other agronomic advantages, like robust productivity and high nutritional value for
cattle.
From the standpoint of both their biology and ecology, spittlebugs present scientists
with an extremely diverse target. Within the family Cercopidae, there are dozens of
spittlebug species distributed across 11 genera that attack grasses. What’s more, the
pest’s behavior varies widely with climate, local habitat, and host plant. With so
many factors influencing the timing, pattern, and intensity of pasture infestations,
control methods need to be tailored to each situation. At the same time, CIAT breeders
need to know which mix of spittlebug species to focus on in their efforts to improve
resistance in Brachiaria hybrids.
Over the past 5 years, CIAT entomologists have been systematically building the
necessary knowledge base and sharing it with national researchers through workshops. They
have identified five contrasting ecoregions within Colombia, CIAT’s host country, to
serve as living laboratories. The chosen sites are representative of the different kinds
of pastureland and rainfall patterns found in Central and South America. This ecoregional
approach has allowed the team to profile the distribution of spittlebug species, their
life cycles, population dynamics, and feeding behavior.
So far, Peck and his colleagues have examined nine previously unstudied species,
observing their behavior—even mating “songs”—in detail. The resulting
profiles are vital to predicting pest outbreaks, designing cost-effective control methods,
and timing their use.
In the area of biocontrol, a key advance has been the collection of 77 strains of fungi
from various spittlebug species. These parasitic organisms, known as entomopathogens, are
natural enemies of the insect. Their suitability as biocontrol agents is now being
evaluated. To maintain and propagate the fungi, CIAT has established a live collection (a
“ceparium”), which also houses fungal isolates of potential use against cassava
pests.
After developing methodologies to screen this collection for effectiveness against
different life stages of spittlebugs, researchers confirmed that virulence varied
significantly among spittlebug species. Field tests in contrasting ecoregions are now
under way to determine just how entomopathogens might be effectively deployed under
typical pasture conditions.
Brachiaria grass is a perennial and therefore a long-term crop. Replanting
vast tracts of pastureland with new spittlebug-resistant varieties adapted to local soil
and climate conditions will therefore be a long and expensive process. In the meantime our
enhanced understanding of the bioecology of spittlebugs is supporting the development of
new biocontrol options, pasture-management methods, and ways to best tailor these to the
diverse ecoregions where this pest occurs. The solution will undoubtedly involve a
complementary mix of these with enhanced host-plant resistance.
Tapping the Wild Side of Rice
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All traits considered, most wild plants are decidedly inferior to their bred
counterparts. For example, Oryza rufipogon, a wild rice from Malaysia, has tiny,
unappetizing seeds with dark hulls that shatter easily. It’s the last thing rice
farmers would want to sow in their fields.
Yet hybrids developed by CIAT over the past few years through repeated crossing of this
wild plant with elite commercial rice continue to outyield the latter. “We’ve
been able to show that wild rice species possess genes of great agronomic
importance,” says CIAT rice breeder César Martínez. “And we’ve been able
to transfer some of them to cultivars.”
CIAT has also been working with an African wild rice, O. glaberrima, which in
many areas of West Africa is cultivated by farmers. It tolerates water stress, competes
well with weeds, and resists rice blast and crinkling disease. As with O. rufipogon,
CIAT breeders have crossed O. glaberrima with elite rice for evaluation.
Drawing on wild species like O. rufipogon and O. glaberrima is just
one of several strategies CIAT is now using to enrich the rice gene pool at the disposal
of rice breeders in Latin America. “The genetic base of rice in this region is very
narrow,” says virologist Lee Calvert, who leads CIAT’s Rice Project. Certain
varieties, like Fedearroz 50, have become extremely popular across the region, he adds.
The potential of wild and weedy species to boost the yields of related crops was first
recognized in 1981. But such superior traits, often controlled by multiple genes called
quantitative trait loci (QTLs), could not be directly seen in the scientific twilight of
the wild plants’ physical appearance and behavior. The lights were finally turned on
in 1996 by researchers at Cornell
University in the USA. They showed how molecular markers and genetic maps could be
used to exploit wild-tomato genes for the benefit of commercial processing tomatoes. They
went on to design a novel strategy called “advanced backcrossing QTL analysis,”
which CIAT now uses for rice improvement.
Our current research, in collaboration with Cornell, is funded by the US Department of
Agriculture (USDA), the Rockefeller Foundation, and
Colombia’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MADR). It is part of a
larger, long-term international project in partnership with other Future Harvest centers and researchers
in several Asian rice-producing countries.
Since the mid-1990s, we have been using conventional crossing of wild rice species with
elite cultivars, in tandem with molecular marker technology, to transfer wild genes and
track their inheritance. The research has allowed CIAT to simultaneously broaden the gene
pool and improve elite rice varieties in Latin America for further development by national
programs.
To date, a range of traits—not just disease resistance and yield but also
nutritional value, grain quality, and cooking qualities—have been examined. However,
the most advanced work focuses on yield and yield-related components like grain weight per
plant.
Over several years we developed two experimental hybrid populations to examine the
potential of O. rufipogon for enhancing cultivated rice (O. sativa). One
population was bred for the rainfed uplands, the other for irrigated conditions. Upland
fields account for 45 percent of Latin America’s total rice area. About one-third of
the upland rice is cultivated manually, usually by poor farmers.
Results of field trials, focusing on yield and related factors in the rice hybrids,
were highly encouraging. For each study population, the hybrids outperformed the
cultivated parent for most or all traits. What’s more, molecular marker analysis
showed strong and positive genetic contributions from the wild parent. The CIAT
researchers also compared their list of contributing QTLs and their locations on
chromosomes with findings from earlier studies by collaborators in China, South Korea, and
other Asian countries.
Introgression of wild genes into elite lines is a strategy being pursued by all three
Future Harvest centers with a rice mandate: the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the West Africa Rice Development
Association (WARDA) and CIAT.
Lee Calvert is enthusiastic about future advances through collaboration among the three
centers and with other partners.
Wild species, Calvert stresses, can be used to improve rice root systems so that they
tolerate drought better. This is especially important to poor farmers on small plots who
don’t have the necessary infrastructure to manage water. Nearly 90 percent of rice
producers in Latin America are small farmers with 3 hectares or less, he notes.
“We’ll be focusing on traits like drought tolerance because the smaller, upland
rice farmers need them.”
Rebuilding El Salvador’s Granary through Integrated
Management of Whiteflies
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site of the Tropical Whitefly Integrated Pest Management (TWF-IPM) Project
With views of the Pacific Ocean, elegant mountain ridges, and irrigated fields, all
punctuated by the silhouette of the Santa Ana volcano, western El Salvador presents a
handsome landscape to its many visitors, among them CIAT’s Francisco Morales. But as
the plant virologist points out, the region’s Valley of Zapotitán—the
“granary” for the nearby national capital of San Salvador—is a land under
siege by tiny invaders.
Morales, who coordinates the Tropical Whitefly Integrated Pest Management (TWF-IPM) Project, refers
to the valley as one of Latin America’s “hot spots.” In recent years
outbreaks of whiteflies and whitefly-transmitted begomoviruses have devastated fields of
dry and snap beans, tomatoes, sweet and chili peppers, cucurbits, and other crops. Damage
occurs mostly during the long dry season, when whitefly populations reach a peak.
Heavy and frequent pesticide application, says Morales, is self-defeating, because
whiteflies develop resistance and the chemicals destroy their natural enemies. It is also
a strategy that local producers can ill afford. In the Valley of Zapotitán, where 80
percent of farms are less than 3 hectares, many families are extremely poor.
One small-scale farmer Morales spoke with described the vicious circle he faces in
growing snap beans: “I apply a mixture of methomyl, methamidophos, and imidacloprid
every 3 days until harvest. But the plants turn yellow and produce small, distorted pods
anyway.” The disease is caused by bean golden yellow mosaic virus (BGYMV),
transmitted by the whitefly Bemisia tabaci.
In collaboration with CIAT, El Salvador’s National Center for Agricultural
Technology (CENTA) has launched a project to reverse Zapotitán’s trend of declining
production. Three divisions of the Ministry of Agriculture, the University of El Salvador,
the Latin American Technical University, and five farmer organizations also belong to the
partnership.
Local farmers are learning that their frequent applications of synthetic pesticides can
be successfully replaced by a combination of cheaper and less environmentally destructive
control tactics. In the case of beans, the centerpiece of this integrated approach to pest
and disease management is BGYMV-resistant varieties of the red-seeded type preferred in El
Salvador and other Central American countries. “We’ve put 3 years into
diagnostic work,” says Morales. “We now know what control methods might work
well in our pilot sites.”
The work in El Salvador was funded initially by Danish International Development
Assistance (Danida), the United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research
Service (USDA-ARS), and the United
States Agency for International Development (USAID). Under a second phase of the Tropical Whitefly Project, this
work is supported by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the CGIAR’s
Participatory Research and Gender Analysis (PRGA) Program.
Beginning in 1971, irrigation systems were built in Zapotitán, and today they serve 60
percent of the valley’s 3,000 hectares of prime agricultural land. Despite these
development efforts, though, production of beans, tomatoes, and peppers has plummeted over
the past decade. Horticultural crops have given way to less profitable sugarcane and
maize. The shift has caused large seasonal fluctuations in local produce prices. In San
Salvador’s markets, for example, tomatoes recently sold for US$7.25 a box in November
and for more than triple that in April.
Under the IPM project, Salvadoran researchers and farmers are testing a full package of
pest-and-disease control tactics. The target crops are beans, tomatoes, peppers, and loroco,
a local plant whose flower buds are eaten fresh, often on pizza, or used in aromatic
sauces.
IPM components include the virus-resistant bean varieties, physical barriers to
insects, minimal use of commercial synthetic insecticides, and substitution of less toxic
products for whitefly management. Physical barriers include microtunnels—wire or
plastic frames covered with netting. Now being tested as a way to protect tomatoes and
peppers during their early growth stage, this option was shown to be successful at another
hot spot site in Yucatan, Mexico, and in El Salvador it doubled the national average yield
for tomatoes this year.
Loroco presents both economic opportunities and special pest-control challenges for
Salvadoran producers. It is grown mostly by women as a backyard crop, both for home
consumption and for extra income. Produce from half a manzana (0.35 hectares) can
fetch up to US$5,000. But loroco is often attacked by whiteflies, as a direct pest, and by
aphids, which also transmit viral diseases.
A vine native to El Salvador, loroco is cultivated using a system of poles and wires
similar to those found in vineyards. One pest-control tactic being tried by the project is
the use of household detergent to control the whiteflies, which tend to fly at or near
ground level. But aphids, says Morales, require a different strategy because “they
fly high like spy planes scanning for targets.” His solution was to increase the
height of support poles, add another layer of wires above the loroco plants, and cover the
grid with palm leaves. This camouflages the crop, thwarting the aphids’
reconnaissance behavior. And since loroco is a forest plant, it easily tolerates the
resulting shade.
The technologies being offered to farmers have enormous potential for recovering large
areas of prime agricultural land that are currently left idle during peak months of
whitefly infestation. The challenge now is to adapt the new technologies, using
participatory methods, to farmers’ cropping systems and market opportunities.
Small Agroenterprises get Higher Prices for Black Pepper and
Coffee
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Recent applications of CIAT’s participatory method for designing integrated
agroenterprise projects (IAPs) support an emerging consensus: adding value to products
before sale and understanding market chains better significantly boosts small-farmer
incomes.
In Peru producers of black pepper who applied the method ended up with price gains
ranging from 20 to 100 percent over prices paid to other farmers. And in Honduras a group
of coffee farmers negotiated a 16 percent premium. While world prices have continued to
fall since then, project participants were recently earning double for a kilogram of
coffee what nonparticipants could get.
The IAP methodology is part of a wider CIAT strategy for promoting multiple rural
business opportunities in defined geographical regions. This territorial approach has the
advantage of building local skills that benefit not just the producers of a specific crop
but also the wider community. And by operating within the context of the overall
territorial economy rather than a single subsector, says CIAT agroenterprise specialist
Mark Lundy, “we can promote a learning environment that links CIAT research with
local development experience and demand.”
A key assumption underlying CIAT’s approach is that growing more food more
efficiently, based on new technology, is not by itself enough to improve rural
livelihoods. In some cases research-driven productivity increases, in the absence of new
policies and other measures, have actually led to market saturation, lower farm-gate
prices, and continuing poverty. The CIAT approach is thus participatory and
market-driven—one in which farmers decide to produce what they can sell rather than
sell what they can produce. The strategy stresses the creation of local capacity to
identify and establish competitive enterprises that are environmentally and economically
sustainable, add value to products, and generate added benefits for the community. Such
spillovers include new jobs and better organizational skills.
The first step is to identify a local partner group interested in business development.
This is typically a consortium of producers and NGOs, sometimes with public- and
private-sector participation. The group constructs a biophysical, economic, and
institutional profile of its territory and identifies market opportunities. Based on
analysis of candidate products and commercial opportunities, some are selected for
full-blown IAP development.
IAP design involves market chain analysis, with the participation of as many key
players as possible: input suppliers, service providers, producers, processors, commercial
agents, industrial consumers, wholesalers, retailers, and exporters. Among other things,
this allows for identification of bottlenecks in the system—plant diseases or poor
transport capacity, for example. In some instances the IAP will include a research
component to rectify problems.
A permanent system for gathering market intelligence is also created. Project members
or service providers systematically collect price and other information vital to
commercial success. In addition, the availability of business support services—such
as those that provide credit, technical assistance, and legal advice—is evaluated,
gaps identified, and improvements designed.
At Pucallpa in the Peruvian Amazon, the IAP exercise showed farmers that the price they
were getting for their black pepper was only a small fraction of the end-consumer price
paid in the capital, Lima. Price differences in the market chain ranged from 600 to 1,000
percent. Based on this information, 45 small producers formed a private company, Piper
S.A., and set their IAP in motion.
The farmers moved quickly to improve and standardize pepper grading and presentation.
This differentiated their product from that of nonparticipants, leading to a 20 percent
price premium in local markets. They also negotiated an agreement with an industrial buyer
in the city of Huancayo, netting them a 58 percent increase over the local price for one
batch of pepper and 30 percent for another. In other cases they were able to sell their
product for more than double the local rate.
Imports from Ecuador led to a price drop in October 2001. Nevertheless, the
farmers’ initial success in improving and repositioning their product helped them set
out a clear business vision for the future, says Lundy. They now want to buy a grinder and
identify an industrial client in Lima, so they can sell a more finished product at a
higher price.
Yorito, Honduras, is the hub of another “territory” in which CIAT is testing
its IAP methodology. A group of 12 coffee farmers there negotiated a 16 percent price
premium with an exporter, based on guarantees of high quality. Although falling world
prices led the exporter to end the deal, another buyer stepped in with a comparable offer
in late 2001. Producers participating in the IAP have been receiving double the price paid
to nonparticipants.
That positive experience led a group of 45 producers, with the help of a local business
development consortium, to begin the lengthy process of having their coffee certified as
organically grown. In the meantime they have been negotiating to have their
“transition” coffee bought by a cooperative at a premium price.
CIAT is now drawing on these and other Latin American experiences to fine-tune its IAP
methodology. It is also examining ways to involve NGOs and private companies in using and
adapting the methodology to multiply positive impact beyond the sites where it has so far
been tested.
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