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Many factors blamed for tropical Africa’s food problems
and poverty—such as discriminatory international trade
policies and national indebtedness—lie beyond the scope
of CIAT’s mandate. But for other key constraints, the
Center can and does provide solutions in partnership with
other organizations—African and international, governmental
and nongovernmental. We have expertise in several interlocking
areas of research that are critical for reducing rural poverty.
These include designing better germplasm and crop protection
systems, enhancing soil fertility, empowering farmers through
community organization, and strengthening their market orientation.
Within these domains what are major challenges for research
and development in Africa? And what scientific strengths can
be harnessed for rural progress? Here we highlight a few interrelated
challenges, followed by articles describing recent CIAT work
in these areas—in Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.
The Magnitude of Africa’s
Challenge
A statistic cited by Mark Malloch Brown, administrator
of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), during
the launch of the 2003 Human Development Report, places the
magnitude of Africa’s need in a wide perspective. Of
the more than one billion people worldwide living in absolute
poverty, one-third are in Africa. Yet the continent accounts
for only about 13 percent of global population. And sub-Saharan
Africa, the locus of greatest human hardship, makes up only
10 percent.
As if seemingly intractable poverty were not bad enough, the
domestic food supply in sub-Saharan Africa remains precarious.
It is barely keeping pace with population growth. Over the
past decade, the region’s annual food production per
person, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO), has been hovering just above, and at times just below,
the average level recorded during the years 1989-1991. Maintaining
or, in some years, slightly boosting per capita production
may seem like progress. But in Africa it simply means that
the seasonal food shortages and human tragedies of the past
are being repeated.
Even a cursory look at some of the literature on African
development reveals deep differences of opinion as to why
the region is so poor and hungry. If there is a “correct”
set of explanations, it is undoubtedly as complex as Africa
is diverse—in culture, climate, history, politics, and
economics. Against this complex background of causes and effects,
CIAT has carved out a highly relevant research agenda that
harnesses the biophysical and social sciences to help Africans
improve food production and farm incomes while protecting
natural resources.
Reversing land degradation
About 65 percent of Africa’s agricultural land is estimated
to be degraded. Low and declining soil fertility, due to continuous
cropping without the addition of adequate organic or inorganic
fertilizers, is part and parcel of the dilemma. It is widely
regarded as one of the biggest biophysical challenges facing
African farmers and scientists.
In 2001, CIAT struck a formal alliance with a long-time partner,
the Kenya-based Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility (TSBF)
Programme, an international research group dedicated to protecting
and improving soils. The new structure, known as the TSBF
Institute of CIAT, is hosted by the World Agroforestry Centre
in Kenya. This alliance is now putting into practice, through
collaboration with African scientists and farmers, the considerable
body of knowledge that has been built up over the past
2 decades.
Fighting pests and diseases
The nutritious common bean is a vital food staple for much
of central, eastern, and southern Africa. As with other crops,
though, beans are routinely attacked by pests and diseases,
which take a heavy toll on the harvest.
Over the past decade or so, CIAT has had significant success
in breeding and disseminating high-yielding, disease-resistant
beans, in collaboration with African producers and researchers.
More recently, beans that tolerate poor soil fertility have
been bred and introduced in several countries. These positive
experiences now serve as a springboard for community-based
experimentation with integrated management of pests and diseases,
especially but not exclusively for beans.
Commercial insecticides are generally too expensive for small-scale
African farmers. At several CIAT research sites in Africa,
farmers are therefore experimenting with organic insecticides
and repellents made from locally available materials. These
tactics are combined with improved crop varieties, crop management
practices, plus the application of green manures and other
organic amendments to build soil fertility.
An accompanying article looks at farmer innovation to manage
pests in Tanzania and at efforts to meet the enormous challenge
of disseminating relevant information to other communities
and countries. The project is a joint effort by local farmers,
CIAT, NGOs, and national agricultural researchers. The article
also examines the closely related problem of soil fertility.
Improving crops, downstream and upstream
The biological cornerstone of any cropping system is germplasm—seeds
and other reproductive materials for planting. Small-scale
farmers in Africa tend to grow a wide mix of crops. A staple
cereal like maize, sorghum, or millet, or a root crop like
cassava, may be complemented by legumes such as beans, cowpeas,
or soybeans.
A major research challenge, then, is to design and distribute
improved varieties of plants that both enhance food and feed
production and fit into the highly variable mixed farming
systems of Africa’s different ecoregions. In the past
African farmers have been slow to pick up on “improved”
varieties and in some cases have rejected new germplasm outright.
This technology adoption failure is usually attributed to
three factors. First, officially released varieties often
do not meet the taste preferences and agronomic requirements
of small farmers. Second, public seed production and distribution
systems are weak, and even when their products are available,
poor farmers may not be able to afford them. And third, private
seed companies favor large-scale, profitable cash crops, while
ignoring the so-called “orphan” crops grown by small
farmers.
A gradual shift from research station-centered plant breeding
to a system that combines farmers’ agricultural know-how
and interest in seed production with conventional science
is under way in Africa. This strategy is now beginning to
pay off.
CIAT has been a pioneer in the design of farmer participatory
research methods. In recent years it has been training NGOs
and national research and extension agencies in their use,
with the cooperation of rural communities. This triple focus—farmers,
development agents, and scientists—promotes African ownership
and relevance of technology, as well as research efficiency.
Molecular markers are fast becoming standard tools in crop
improvement. Yet, sophisticated biotechnology for accelerating
plant breeding and making it more reliable has largely been
out of Africa’s reach. This is due to the high costs
of equipment and chemical reagents and to lack of training
opportunities for African scientists.
CIAT is currently exploiting its considerable expertise in
biotechnology to improve beans and cassava, vital crops for
both Africa and Latin America. A recently completed biotechnology
laboratory at the Kawanda Agricultural Research Institute
in Uganda, where CIAT has its regional office, serves as a
training ground for African scientists under an initiative
involving CIAT, Uganda’s National Agricultural Research
Organisation (NARO), and the International Plant Genetic Resources
Institute (IPGRI). Our “philosophy of biotechnology,”
which emulates that of our farmer participatory research methods,
is to give young African researchers a chance to apply biotechnology
methods and adapt them to local resources and working conditions.
“If you make the breeders part of the biotechnology development
process, you are more likely to have success,” says CIAT
plant pathologist George Mahuku.
One of the articles in this section describes the role of
farmers in “downstream,” community-based crop improvement
in several African countries where CIAT works. It also explains
how our scientists are applying “upstream” biotechnology
to enhance disease resistance and other traits in the crop
genotypes passed on to farmers for evaluation and selection.
Growing for markets
African farmers, especially those with little land, are caught
between a rock and a hard place. Their explanation, remarkably
similar from place to place, goes something like this: “At
the best of times, most of us can’t grow enough food
to get our families through the hungry season between harvests.
We need cash to buy the shortfall at local markets, usually
when prices are high. To do this, some of us, usually the
men, work for neighboring farmers or leave the area for temporary
jobs in mines and city factories.”
While sectoral diversification is critical to Africa’s
economic progress, agriculture remains the foundation on which
that future will be built. As some donors, like the Canadian
International Development Agency (CIDA), have explicitly stated,
renewed investment in African agricultural development is
essential. But there are major hurdles to overcome. These
include poorly developed channels for information on market
opportunities and prices, inadequate roads and transport,
high input prices, and bottlenecks in seed-production systems.
Many observers also stress the need to eliminate protectionist
policies in those foreign countries that might otherwise be
lucrative exports markets for African products. Roger Kirkby,
CIAT’s regional coordinator for Africa, cautions, however,
that creating a fairer playing field in international food
trade, while desirable, is only part of the solution. “Some
people assume that better market access will solve all problems.
But if markets are opened up through new trade policies, the
opportunities will be seized only by those who are already
strong innovators and entrepreneurs.”
To further stimulate that rural dynamism, CIAT has produced
tools for planning and setting up sustainable agroenterprises.
Farmer groups and support-service providers, such as NGOs,
use them to analyze market opportunities and commodity chains,
and to identify those production hurdles that can be best
solved through local research. While we pioneered these methods
in Latin America, they are now being tested and adopted in
Africa.
As an article below demonstrates, African farmers are successfully
experimenting with new market opportunities and are ready
to take risks. Production of pyrethrum flowers in southwestern
Uganda, for the international market in organic pesticides,
is just one example. The long-term success of this and other
efforts, says Kirkby, demands that the emerging spirit of
innovation and entrepreneurship in Africa be welded to conservation
of the continent’s fragile natural resource base.
Solutions Above and
Below Ground
Integrated approaches to pest, disease, and
soil fertility management
Commercial agriculture, especially in industrialized
countries, has relied heavily on synthetic pesticides and
inorganic fertilizers to manage the above- and below-ground
environments of crops. But this monolithic, curative approach
to soil nutrient depletion, plant diseases, and insect pests
has well-known drawbacks. Apart from environmental impacts,
it does not fit well into Africa’s small-scale farming
systems. Poor farmers rarely can afford to use commercial
inputs at recommended rates.
The more holistic methods of integrated pest management (IPM)—often
expanded to include diseases (IPDM)—and its younger cousin,
integrated soil fertility management (ISFM), offer African
producers cost-effective alternatives. CIAT is helping adapt
these approaches not only to specific crops and agroecological
settings but also to farmers’ available resources and
livelihood requirements. ISFM and IPM are, however, more knowledge
and labor intensive than seed- and chemical-centered technologies.
Widespread adoption requires hands-on learning and experimentation
by farmers, in addition to documentation and intensive dissemination
work.
A paradigm shift in soils research
Many scientists consider declining soil fertility the biggest
obstacle to food security in Africa. Unfavorable geology and
climate are part of the problem. But many interconnected human
influences are also at work. Continuous cropping, overgrazing,
deforestation, and cultivation of steep slopes without erosion
control are major causes. The problem is accentuated by lack
of farmer empowerment and inappropriate policies on fertilizer
and food prices. On the scientific side, there are still major
gaps in our understanding of soil dynamics, especially the
biology and ecology of below-ground biodiversity.
Solving this problem requires a mix of strategies involving
multiple partners, but especially farmers, the primary stewards
of the soil. Fortunately, there has been significant progress
on the technical and social sides, thanks in large part to
the work of CIAT’s Nairobi-based Tropical Soil Biology
and Fertility (TSBF) Institute.
Over the past 20 years, TSBF has helped usher in a new paradigm
for soil science. ISFM moves away from the earlier focus on
inorganic fertilizers and puts greater emphasis on the role
of organic matter and soil organisms in sustainable farming.
The new approach also accords a central role to farmer innovation
and technology diffusion as well as community action.
“The yield gap between research stations and farmers’
fields can be bridged,” says TSBF director Nteranya Sanginga,
“if farmers are empowered and better organized. They
need simple methods for diagnosing soil fertility problems
and for identifying optimal combinations of organic and inorganic
inputs.” CIAT has made significant progress in both these
areas of ISFM.
Dedicated national scientists
The main implementing mechanism for CIAT’s soils research
in Africa is the African Network for Soil Biology and Fertility
(AfNet). “I’m convinced that the way to change things
is through the dedication of national scientists,” says
CIAT-TSBF soil scientist and AfNet coordinator André
Bationo. “But they need to be better organized through
mechanisms like AfNet.”
AfNet scientists in 16 countries help farmers combat soil
nutrient depletion through both researcher- and farmer-managed
trials. Funding is provided by the Rockefeller Foundation,
the Technical Centre for Rural and Agricultural
Co-operation (CTA), Danish International Development Assistance
(Danida), US Agency for International Development (USAID),
and Global Environment Fund of the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP).
In one experiment Kenyan researchers showed that combining
inorganic nitrogen fertilizer with locally available organic
material (nitrogen-rich leaves and stems of tithonia, or false
sunflower) nearly doubled maize yields. Such experiments across
Africa are helping to quantify the nutritive value and effects
of on-farm sources of organic matter, thus giving farmers
critical information about a significant alternative or complement
to costly inorganic fertilizers.
Farmer groups for learning
In western Kenya farmer field schools (FFSs) and demonstration
plots are vital ingredients of TSBF’s holistic approach.
Working with CIAT-TSBF staff and a community facilitator from
the Ministry of Agriculture, farmers meet weekly to learn
about soil fertility technologies that can improve their food
production for home consumption and local markets.
Mukhombe FFS is one such school. It operates in the Emuhaya
division of Vihiga District, one of the most densely populated
regions of Africa. Because of the difficult challenges that
Emuhaya’s agriculture faces, the Kenya Agricultural Research
Institute (KARI) selected it as a research “benchmark”
site under the African Highlands Initiative (AHI). Coordinated
by the World Agroforestry Centre, AHI has collaborated actively
with CIAT and TSBF since 1995.
On the last day of April 2003, about
30 students gather for a seminar on a gently sloping hill
planted to beans and maize. The facilitator is CIAT-TSBF agronomist
John Mukalama. Today’s subject is improved production
of beans and maize by combining organic sources of nitrogen
with inorganic phosphorus. Previously, the farmers learned
that their soils are deficient not only in nitrogen but also,
more importantly, in phosphorus. They already knew that most
organic inputs, like the farmyard manure that has been applied
to some of the subplots, provide nitrogen but do not contain
much phosphorus. Mineral fertilizer is also needed.
After noting the recommended dosage of inorganic phosphorus
fertilizer—60 kilograms per hectare—Mukalama moves
from subplot to subplot describing the different manure and
mineral fertilizer treatments. “The plants with the phosphorus
application look much stronger and healthier,” comments
a woman student. Another adds: “I believe those beans
will produce more flowers than the ones in the other plot.”
During a hands-on learning session with another group of
farmers, in the village of Amongura, Teso District, Mukalama
demonstrates simple tests for identifying local plants suitable
as green manures. In this way he translates a scientific understanding
of organic matter decomposition into terms farmers can readily
understand. Plants with dark green leaves, for example, generally
have more nitrogen than lighter colored ones, he explains.
Those that tear easily have low lignin content and therefore
make good green manure because they decompose rapidly. The
farmers put two plant materials to the test—tithonia
and leaves from a local tree. They correctly conclude that
tithonia is the better green manure.
Such activities have motivated farmers to solve soil fertility
problems that previously they had dismissed as just “part
of life.” Besides serving as a venue for learning about
soil fertility management, the 18-month-old Mukhombe Farmer
Field School has been a catalyst for sharing knowledge with
other farmers. Several students also belong to a local drama
and singing group and have used information from the farmer
field school as the basis for a play and songs. When time
and money permit, they travel to nearby villages spreading
the word about the importance of soil fertility and the advantages
of group learning. Since most local farmers regularly listen
to radio, the group hopes to record their songs and have them
aired by radio stations.
Biodiversity below our feet
Apart from using green manures and livestock manure, farmers
can build up soil organic material by planting leguminous
cover crops and incorporating crop residues into their fields
instead of burning them. But the organic content needs to
be broken down to make nutrients available to crops. The various
tasks of soil conditioning and nutrient cycling are performed
by microorganisms such as protozoa, rhizobial bacteria, and
mycorrhizal fungi, as well as by larger organisms like earthworms,
nematodes, termites, and beetles.
“Below-ground biodiversity is sometimes overlooked,”
says CIAT soil scientist Jeroen Huising. “But now it’s
time to take a closer look at what’s below our feet.”
He notes that in addition to making soil a suitable growing
environment for crops, these organisms play a key role in
the soil’s capacity to provide so-called environmental
services. These include water and nutrient cycling, elimination
of toxins, and the storage of carbon that might otherwise
end up as carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, in the earth’s
atmosphere.
Despite the extent and environmental importance of below-ground
biodiversity (BGBD), says Huising, only an estimated 5 percent
of soil organisms have so far been identified and characterized
by scientists. And BGBD has been largely ignored in biodiversity
conservation efforts. To help fill this gap in knowledge and
practice, CIAT launched a 5-year research project, called
Conservation and Sustainable Management of Below-Ground Biodiversity,
in August 2002. UNEP’s Global Environment Fund is providing
US$9 million to the project, which focuses on tropical soils
at seven sites in Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
Learning to manage pests
Integrated management of plant pests and diseases is the
other half of the above- and below-ground management effort
so important to farmers.
“Since joining the farmer learning group, my bean production
has increased by about half,” says Reminiska Moshi, a
33-year-old farmer who, with her husband, works a 1-hectare
farm in northern Tanzania. The group Moshi joined in 2000
is one of 52 with which CIAT has been collaborating in Hai
District to stimulate farmer experimentation with, and adoption
of, IPM methods. Scientists from Tanzania’s Ministry
of Agriculture and Food Security, along with two NGOs, are
key partners. CIAT is building on that experience to scale
up dissemination and adoption of IPM technologies in collaboration
with other partners in Malawi, Kenya, and other areas of Tanzania
through a 3-year project funded by the UK’s Department
for International Development (DFID).
Local bean growers were the catalyst for the participatory
IPM project in Tanzania. Five years ago crop damage was so
heavy that some farmers were forced to stop producing beans.
Frustrated, they sent a delegation to speak with local authorities,
who in turn asked CIAT and the Selian Agricultural Research
Institute for help with problem diagnosis. Much of the bean
damage in farmers’ fields turned out to be the work of
bean foliage beetles (commonly referred to by their genus,
Ootheca).
Since then, hundreds of bean farmers like Reminiska Moshi
have formed small groups and set up learning plots, in which
they test and demonstrate IPM methods. The learning groups
in Hai District focus not only on IPM practices for beans
but also on seed production and experimentation with new crops
such as soybean. Two NGOs, the Adventist Development and Relief
Agency (ADRA) and World Vision International, assist the farmer
groups with technology development and dissemination.
“I’ve been working with extension for 15 years
now, and I haven’t seen a method that passes on agricultural
information as fast as this one,” says Edward Ulicky,
a district agricultural development officer, referring to
the participatory methods used in the project.
Traditional and new practices
The centerpiece of the farmers’ work is the testing
of botanical pest control materials and practices, both traditional
and new. Formulations based on neem oil and powder, for example,
are used successfully against bean foliage beetle, aphids,
and bean fly. Other treatments include cow shed slurry, wood
ash, and various herbs. The farmers, like their counterparts
in Kenya, are also learning improved crop management practices,
dealing with factors like the timing of cultivation and planting,
and optimal spacing of plants.
IPM testing and application is most effective when participating
farmers are familiar with the biology and ecology of pests.
In screenhouse experiments between 2000 and 2002, Ulicky,
three CIAT colleagues, and farmers examined the life cycle
of the bean foliage beetle. This allowed the farmers to see
how IPM methods work.
Another joint experiment validated the farmers’ traditional
belief that applying manure to bean plants results in a healthier
crop with a higher yield. But the improvement was not simply
the effect of higher nutrient availability to the plants.
In manure-treated beans, the research team observed less root
damage by Ootheca larvae.
Sharing the message
Felix Mosha, chairperson of a cluster of seven farmer groups
from four villages, says he is now able to partially control
the bean foliage beetle. However, he stresses that for IPM
to work properly it must be a community effort. “So,
we’re using our learning plots to teach our neighbors.”
As in Kenya, drama is a powerful vehicle for sharing IPM
messages with other farmers, according to Mosha. During a
field demonstration, he invites a local acting troupe, the
Mshikamano Group (literally “Stick Together”), to
stage a short play in Swahili. In the opening scene, a visitor
arrives in a Tanzanian village. He tells his hosts about various
methods he has learned to combat bean pests—for example,
rotating crops between beans and sunflowers. The underlying
message of the drama is clear: Learning by listening and exchanging
experiences with other farmers will lead to a better life
for all.
As part of a wider effort to disseminate technology and scale
up adoption, ADRA produced a Swahili version of a field guide
on IPM practices, aimed at farmers and extension workers.
Posters, pamphlets, and radio programming are also being used.
Yona Gabriel Mbwana is the ADRA technical officer who adapted
and translated the IPM guide. Farmer groups are helping by
providing the local names of insects. Although there are some
200 languages in Tanzania, says Mbwana, the national literacy
rate of 57 percent is high enough to ensure reader-to-nonreader
diffusion of the information. “There is a critical mass
of farmers who are schooled in Swahili.”
Over the longer term, ADRA hopes to get the IPM materials
into Tanzania’s school curriculum, thus targeting the
next generation of farmers. As for CIAT, it has begun feeding
the IPM materials into a larger initiative of the Pan-African
Bean Research Alliance (PABRA), aimed at making improved bean
technologies available to millions of farmers in central,
eastern and southern Africa over the next
5 years.
Upstream Meets Downstream
Biotechnology and farmer research for crop
improvement
Both “upstream” molecular analysis
by biotechnologists and “downstream” variety evaluation
by farmer-researchers today play vital roles in otherwise
conventional plant breeding—in Africa and elsewhere.
In fact, the up/down distinction is blurring as contributions
to crop improvement from laboratories and farms become increasingly
integrated.
Early in the process, farmers make known their plant-trait
preferences and market requirements. For their part biotechnologists
identify useful plant genes, characterize disease-causing
organisms, and help conserve and expand biodiversity. As specific
research targets are elucidated by farmers and researchers
alike, biotechnologists help breeders speed up their work
by providing molecular markers that precisely identify which
plant progeny bear the desirable gene or genes. Promising
lines coming out of marker-assisted selection (MAS) and more
conventional breeding programs can then go to farmers and
national scientists for detailed evaluation. Seed of the resulting
selections is reproduced by farmers, stimulating early adoption,
or by national programs for further breeding.
Participatory plant breeding in Africa
Participatory plant breeding is rapidly becoming the norm
in bean research programs across Africa. The shift in thinking
began in Rwanda during the late 1980s, when CIAT and Rwanda’s
Institute of Agricultural Sciences (ISAR) had major success
working with women farmers on the selection and introduction
of new bean lines. Since then, gender-sensitive participatory
methods have gained wide acceptance in agricultural research
across the developing world.
University of Nairobi professor and CIAT bean breeder Paul
Kimani, who coordinates this work in the Eastern and Central
Africa Bean Research Network (ECABREN), describes the underlying
problem with earlier scientist-centered approaches to research:
“You think you know exactly what everyone needs. But
then farmers don’t take up the new varieties.” What
is much better understood and accepted now, he says, is that
the breeder must have “intimate knowledge of the customer.”
That shift has paid off. Over the past 16 years, CIAT’s
collaborative bean research for Africa has produced a wealth
of high-yielding, stress-resistant bean varieties. These products
are known to be effective and relevant for small-scale farming,
because participating farmers at pilot sites have enthusiastically
tested, adopted, and shared them with neighboring farmers.
Malawi is one of several countries that have institutionalized
participatory research in bean improvement work during recent
years. Farmer evaluations are key ingredients in the complex
process of moving from experimental breeding lines to officially
released varieties.
An improved variety that sells itself
On a Wednesday afternoon in April, merchants at Chimbiya
Market in Malawi’s Dedza District weigh dry beans on
scales suspended from tall tripods. Farmers with only a few
kilos on hand sit patiently by the roadside waiting to sell
by the bowlful.
As in many parts of Malawi, beans are the biggest source
of dietary protein in this area, near the southern shore of
the majestic African lake that bears the country’s name.
Most production is for the family dinner table. But dry beans
are also a major source of cash for small farmers. The price
they receive depends heavily on the seed type. While these
nutritious legumes vary in size and shape, the most obvious
difference, and often a selling point, is their color.
One young man summarizes his day so far: “I’ve
been able to sell three bags of Napilira, but I still have
three bags of other types—Mozambican and mixed beans.”
Napilira, also known to CIAT breeders as CAL 143, is a red
calima-type bean with white specks. The seller admits that,
like his customers today, his own taste preference is for
Napilira, also the most expensive.
“Napilira started to get to farmers in 1998,” says
Rowland Chirwa, a CIAT bean breeder and coordinator of the
Southern Africa Bean Research Network (SABRN). “Now,
after several seasons, farmers are really getting to know
this variety.”
Napilira means hardy or resistant in the Chichewa language.
The name was chosen by a group of 15 farmer-researchers from
the nearby village of Kalilombe. Besides appealing to consumers,
this officially released bean variety has a special advantage
for farmers: it can be grown successfully under conditions
of poor soil fertility. Low levels of phosphorus and nitrogen
are typical of the soils of Africa’s bean-growing regions.
This is partly because farmers, who find imported inorganic
fertilizer very expensive, do little to replace the nutrients
lost through cropping.
Kalilombe is one of six sites in Malawi where farmers have
worked with CIAT, national bean scientists, extension workers,
and NGOs to grow, evaluate, and select beans. After harvesting
their field experiments, farmers performed cooking and taste
tests. Cooking times were recorded and compared, and the beans
were eaten in typical local fashion, as a garnish for nsima,
a stiff porridge made from maize. One advantage noted by the
farmers is that fast-cooking beans like Napilira reduced consumption
of the firewood and maize cobs used as fuel.
Four of the eight bean lines evaluated in Kalilombe and released
by the country’s Department of Agricultural Research
Services (DARS) were selections from the Working Group on
Bean Improvement for Low Fertility Adaptation (BILFA), which
is part of the Pan-African Bean Research Alliance (PABRA).
Collaborating scientists from several countries follow the
same research protocols to evaluate hundreds of bean breeding
lines for tolerance to low soil fertility. This common approach,
says Chirwa, leads to reliable conclusions about which lines
will do well across a spectrum of African soil conditions.
Biotechnology for Africa
Extracting DNA in an environmentally controlled laboratory
where everyone wears a white coat may seem light-years away
from the food crop experiments done by African farmers in
their fields and around cooking fires. Yet these contrasting
forms of science are now merging into an integrated process
of crop improvement. While CIAT continues to promote farmer
participatory research methods, it is also working to build
African capacity for biotechnology research on beans and cassava.
Over the past 2 decades, nearly all of CIAT’s crop-related
biotechnology for Africa has been carried out at our laboratory
in Colombia or in advanced facilities in other countries.
But since 1999 these arrangements have been evolving. Center
scientists now conduct biotechnology research and training
in a new laboratory at Uganda’s Kawanda Agricultural
Research Institute.
In the past lack of equipment and training in sub-Saharan
African and other regions of the developing world meant that
microorganisms and plant tissues had to be shipped abroad
for DNA extraction and analysis. This was slow and cumbersome,
in part because of quarantine rules designed to prevent disease
transmission. DNA itself, though, is not bulky and shipping
it poses little or no biohazard.
CIAT and collaborating national scientists recently designed
and tested a simple, inexpensive method for DNA extraction
that gets around technical and financial hurdles involved
in conventional procedures. In particular, it eliminates the
use of two toxic organic compounds, phenol and chloroform,
which African laboratories are generally not equipped to handle.
The new method, which is suitable for a range of organisms,
including bacteria, fungi, and plants, allows for processing
of more than 40 samples per day. Experiments have demonstrated
that the resulting DNA is pure enough for most kinds of genetic
analysis based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR), the standard
means of DNA amplification.
Problem-solving applications
One of the main activities at the Kawanda biotech lab has
been DNA extraction from bean plants and from the Pythium
spp. fungi that cause bean root rots. Genetic characterization
of these fungi is of special importance to Africa. Beans are
highly susceptible to attack a week or two after germination,
especially when soil moisture is high. In parts of Western
Kenya, root rots were such a big problem several years ago
that farmers stopped growing beans.
Control of bean root rots depends, among other things, on
correct diagnosis of the disease agent. Of the 100 or so species
of Pythium, only nine—what CIAT plant pathologist Robin
Buruchara calls the “bad guys”—have to date
been confirmed as pathogenic.
Conventional genotyping of fungi is difficult because of
the presence of many different organisms in soil samples.
CIAT scientists have thus adopted DNA profiling to distinguish
between species of Pythium. During 2001 and 2002, this allowed
them to organize hundreds of samples (“isolates”)
of the fungi from Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda into 24 clusters.
Isolates representing major groups are now being selected
for DNA sequencing. Once easy-to-use diagnostic tests are
developed for the worst offenders, bean breeders can use them
to target research on host plant resistance.
CIAT scientists recently identified molecular markers that
can assist in the fight against another major bean disease—angular
leaf spot, caused by the fungus Phaeoisariopsis griseola.
The markers distinguish between virulent and nonvirulent strains,
as well as between Latin American and African strains. The
biotechnology laboratory in Uganda has helped to validate
the utility of these molecular tools under African conditions.
There has also been progress in combating cassava mosaic
disease (CMD), the most damaging disease of the crop in Africa.
CMD2 is a resistance gene in cassava that was identified 3
years ago by CIAT molecular geneticist Martin Fregene. Molecular
markers for the gene have since been used to systematically
screen crosses of resistant and susceptible cassava varieties.
This has paved the way for major projects in which African
producers and scientists will evaluate and improve resistant
genotypes.
In Tanzania, for example, CIAT will work on a 6-year project
with the agriculture ministry’s Department for Research
and Development, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture
(IITA), and farmer groups. With funding from the Rockefeller
Foundation, researchers will cross germplasm resistant to
CMD, cassava bacterial blight, and green mite with preferred
local varieties adapted to specific ecological niches. Training
of national scientists in biotechnology and participatory
methods will figure prominently in the project.
Given the large number of parent plants involved, the breeders
will use molecular markers to quickly pare down candidate
progeny to a workable, but still sizable number. These will
then be evaluated in the appropriate ecological zones by scientists
and cassava producers. “It’s a disservice to farmers
not to give them a wide range of choices in view of the high
risks they face,” says Fregene.
If all goes well, this project will showcase the rapid convergence
of biotechnology and participatory methods in the concerted
push for greater food security and rural incomes. For Fregene,
improved cassava has enormous commercial potential for his
native Africa. “I’m really excited about all this,”
he says. “I always come to work with a spring in my step.”
The final frontier of crop improvement
Increasing the efficiency of crop breeding, with the aid
of participatory plant breeding and biotechnology, is a major
accomplishment for Africa. Even so, to date the overall impact
of new bean varieties in the region has not been massive,
due in part to the relatively short period in which these
innovations have had a chance to spread.
CIAT and its national partners in PABRA have therefore embarked
on an ambitious multicountry promotional project to cross
this final frontier in bean improvement. The project aims
to deliver improved bean technologies to 10 million people
over 5 years.
Farmer evaluation of improved beans is, of course, a prominent
feature of this effort. And it offers the special benefit
of allowing participating farmers to adopt new varieties early
on and to save seed. But to have real national impact, seed
production must extend well beyond the informal efforts of
a relatively few farmer groups. In practice, most African
countries experience bottlenecks in this area. One problem
is that commercial seed companies have little interest in
self-pollinating crops like beans, since seed can easily be
saved on-farm.
For several years Malawi’s Ministry of Agriculture and
Irrigation has been promoting large-scale seed production.
In April 2002 it asked for CIAT’s assistance, based on
the Center’s considerable experience working with NGOs
on seed production and promotion campaigns. CIAT provided
40 tons of seed of several bean varieties as well as technical
assistance in contracting 1,600 small farmers to multiply
the seed. Then, between October and December 2002, 1,000 tons
of seed grown by those farmers were distributed in agricultural
starter packets, which also contained soybean, groundnut,
and maize seed, plus fertilizer.
An estimated 300,000 small-farm families directly benefited
from the scheme in a single year. This achievement was especially
timely and relevant given the devastating maize shortage that
gripped Malawi in early 2002. Beans, the main food source
when maize runs out, are clearly vital to the country’s
food security.
But Malawi is just one country in a vast region of Africa
that relies heavily on bean production for sustenance and
income. In Kenya and Uganda, farmer groups are now being trained
to produce seed, using a manual on business skills for seed
producers, developed by CIAT staff, along with a guide for
trainers. Under the PABRA-sponsored project mentioned earlier,
a total of 12 African countries will benefit from large-scale
delivery of bean technologies. In each case seed production
and distribution are central components of a
10-step action plan.
After selecting germplasm and other technologies suited to
specific bean-growing zones, the national teams have already
begun to produce quality seed for reproduction, set price
structures, and design promotional materials. Consultations
with implementing partners—NGOs, seed companies, extension
agencies, and community organizations—are also under
way. The entire process, from concept through delivery, adoption,
and impact on communities, will be carefully monitored and
evaluated so that lessons learned can benefit future efforts
by CIAT and its partners to multiply impact.
Learning to Compete
Agroenterprises for higher family income
Poverty alleviation is about helping people
exploit new opportunities to improve their livelihoods. Promoting
entrepreneurship to boost income is just one aspect of this
complex process, but it is a powerful one. In one fell swoop,
it can expand individuals’ and communities’ options
for better education, health, nutrition, housing, and social
and family life.
Over the past 2 years, CIAT has been working at three pilot
sites in Africa to adapt, test, and disseminate its territorial
approach for identifying market opportunities and building
lucrative agroenterprises around them. This research is part
of a larger CIAT initiative in Africa called Enabling Rural
Innovation. It takes place under a project of the Pan-African
Bean Research Alliance (PABRA), funded by the Canadian International
Development Agency (CIDA) and the government of Belgium. The
Center’s approach for agroenterprise development is being
further refined and scaled out through “learning alliances”
between CIAT and both local and international NGOs, including
Africare and Catholic Relief Services (CRS).
In much of eastern and southern Africa, semisubsistence farming
traps rural people in an onerous cycle of food production
geared largely to home consumption. It generates little money
to pay for other necessities of life, like clothing, medicine,
and school fees, and allows little time for personal enrichment.
Off-farm labor is often the main source of cash. When harvests
of staple crops are good, some revenue is squeezed from the
surplus. But this extra food typically fetches low prices
in local markets. With little or no value added through processing,
it is often sold during or just after the harvest, when there
is an oversupply.
Coping with a tilted playing field
Production for markets is inherently more risky than raising
crops and livestock for home consumption. For example, it
is extremely difficult for individual farmers to achieve the
consistency of product quality, quantity, and timing of delivery
demanded by bulk buyers serving large consumer markets.
The risks of agricultural entrepreneurship in rural Africa
are accentuated by persistent production-side bottlenecks:
tight credit, high fertilizer costs, and weak business-support
services. And on the distribution and consumption side, constant
threats to small business viability include poor roads and
transport, lack of timely market information, and unfavorable
international trading regimes.
“The playing field is rather tilted against small farmers
trying to set up agroenterprises,” says Rupert Best,
manager of CIAT’s Agroenterprise Development Project.
Despite the lip service paid to trade liberalization and globalization,
inequities remain in international trade in agricultural products.
“Technological interventions to help small farmers only
go so far,” says Best. “The policy environment has
to be favorable too.”
He is optimistic, however, that some local distortions in
the “playing field” can be dealt with through group
planning of agroenterprises based on good knowledge and information.
He cites the problem of low farm-gate prices in northern Tanzania
as an example. In Lushoto District a group of farmers participating
in the Enabling Rural Innovation Project traveled to a neighboring
community to learn about quality requirements for farm products,
frequency and volume of delivery, and prices. They met with
a group of successful farmers who are delivering
4 tons of produce to market per week.
“The Lushoto farmers had no idea that fellow producers
just 20 kilometers away had organized themselves, introduced
new production technologies, and captured a share of the high-value
fruit and vegetable market in the capital, Dar es Salaam,”
says Best. “They became aware of the large markup, the
gap between what farmers are paid and what consumers pay.
So they decided to form an association to handle their marketing
from now on.”
When agroenterprises are carefully designed to cope with
such constraints, they offer rural people an escape route
from poverty. In southern Malawi farmers in Enabling Rural
Innovation are experimenting with production and marketing
of goats and rabbits, and in northern Tanzania, with beans
and tomatoes. At a third CIAT pilot site, in southwestern
Uganda, farmers have likewise selected two priorities for
which they identified clear markets: chickens for local egg
sales, and pyrethrum flowers for a local plant that extracts
and exports crude organic pesticide.
Among both government and nongovernment organizations in
Africa, says Best, demand for CIAT training and expertise
in agroenterprise development and other participatory methods
is on the rise. To scale up its impact, the Center collaborates
with Foodnet, a program sponsored by the Association for Strengthening
Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA)
and coordinated by the International Institute of Tropical
Agriculture (IITA). Foodnet has supported over 50 market opportunity
studies over the past 2 years and is designing methods to
strengthen the collection and dissemination of market information
for African farmers.
Budding business in a Ugandan village
Over the past 3 years, CIAT has provided training in participatory
methods to Africare staff. These methods are now routinely
used in the five districts of Uganda in which Africare operates.
The main skills learned during the training workshops, in
which development agents from other countries also participated,
were participatory identification of problems and opportunities,
community facilitation, and agroenterprise development. These
approaches help ensure that new economic options are created
for both women and men, that benefits are equitably distributed,
and that increased income serves as an incentive for improved
land management.
Muguli, located in Uganda’s mountainous Kabale region,
is a village of 65 households. Its residents are working with
Africare and CIAT to build a community business around pyrethrum,
a member of the chrysanthemum family containing natural insecticidal
compounds. As at other project sites, this initiative is just
one ingredient in an integrated, long-term community action
plan designed by the villagers. Besides generating income,
pyrethrum cultivation has two other important functions. It
is a component of the community’s land conservation work
on upper slopes, and it is a test crop, along with beans,
for learning about soil fertility, particularly the role of
organic and inorganic amendments.
“Muguli, Let’s Fight Poverty” is both the
community organization’s name and its motto. After a
participatory analysis of villagers’ resources, needs,
and aspirations, members set up committees to execute the
group action plan. The committees focus on land conservation,
public health, experimentation with crops, and income generation
through agroenterprises.
“The physical environment was in an appalling condition,”
says the organization’s secretary, Saturday Mercy, during
a community meeting attended by 45 villagers and guests. On
a large hand-drawn map of the village, she points to ominous
clusters of X’s. These represent the locations of deep
gully erosion, and barren, vulnerable land on the high ground
surrounding the village.
But thanks to recent work to implement the village action
plan, there has been significant progress on erosion control.
Hundreds of drainage trenches, explains Mercy, have been cut
across slopes to prevent soil runoff and protective bunds
have been stabilized. And on one high mountain meadow, farmers
have planted barren land to pyrethrum flowers. Eventually
they will also introduce perennial crops like coffee, banana,
and avocado.
Later, a committee coordinator describes the origins and
progress of the pyrethrum agroenterprise project. The villagers
chose this crop because they had heard that other farmers
in the region were regularly selling flowers to a local processing
plant. Wanting to see for themselves, a delegation from Muguli
traveled to a local town to meet with established pyrethrum
growers and learn about their work.
Pyrethrins are the insecticidal compounds in pyrethrum flowers.
However, production in profitable quantities occurs only at
high altitudes with the right amount of daily sunlight. As
it turns out, the mountainous environment of the Kabale region
perfectly fits the bill.
The CIAT-Africare research team helped farmers cost out the
agroenterprise and set up soil-fertility experiments aimed
at maximizing production. The local processing plant, owned
by Agro Management (Uganda) Ltd., which is headquartered in
the USA, provided seedlings free of charge. The flowers are
picked weekly and sun-dried before delivery to a drop-off
point run by Agro Management’s all-women collection staff.
Because Muguli’s soils are deficient in both nitrogen
and phosphorus, the farmers are experimenting with various
combinations of fertilizers to build soil fertility. These
include farmyard manure, commercial NPK fertilizer, and a
low-cost byproduct of pyrethrum processing, composted flower
heads called marc.
Agro Management began processing pyrethrum in Uganda in 1993.
According to the firm’s chief agronomist and director
Ronald Martin, “We have the best quality pyrethrum of
any place in the world.” The pyrethrin-extraction factory
now draws on harvests from about 525 hectares of local farmland,
providing work for 10,000 people. Yet this corresponds to
only about one-third of the plant’s operating capacity.
There is thus ample room to accommodate production from new
agroenterprises like that in Muguli.
From 25 tons of dried flowers, the company can make 1 ton
of crude insecticide extract (42 percent pure). The extract
is normally exported to a single commercial buyer who further
refines the product for sale to other customers. However,
Agro Management is planning to have Ugandan pyrethrum refined
on contract in Europe. This would allow the company to sell
directly to other buyers, who require a more finished product
for use in household insecticides. In the meantime payments
to some pyrethrum farmers have been delayed.
Farmers in Muguli are aware of the financial risks of dealing
with a single local firm that currently has only one large
client. On the one hand, the global market for pyrethrum-based
insecticides is growing. And, if all goes well, Agro Management
will be able to diversify its client base to the benefit of
Ugandan producers. On the other hand, if troubled waters lie
ahead, the farmers will have to look for alternative products
to grow. “There is no business without risk,” says
Jeffrey Habarwasha, who chairs Muguli’s income generation
committee. “We’ll try something else if there is
no market for pyrethrum.”
Information for rural innovation
An essential ingredient of successful agroenterprise development
is access to timely and reliable information on technical
options, business services, and markets. In the Kabale region,
the African Highlands Initiative (AHI), an ASARECA-sponsored
program that is coordinated by the International Centre for
Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) and in which CIAT takes part,
has set up two telecenters with assistance from the Acacia
Program of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).
The telecenters provide a variety of services to local communities,
such as Internet access, publication loans, photocopying,
poster production, and computer training for students.
Recently, one telecenter began a marketing information service
for farmers. Prices and other commodity information are collected
weekly, translated into the local language, and distributed
to a local radio station for broadcast. The information is
also turned into printed pamphlets and distributed monthly.
“Farmers are being cheated because of lack of information,”
says CIAT’s regional coordinator for Africa, Roger Kirkby.
Many end up selling crops at less than their true market value
or they take a chance on cultivating new crops without adequate
knowledge of the size and stability of the market. The integration
of modern information and communication technologies (ICTs)
with participatory agroenterprise development, he says, will
go a long way to strengthening the emerging spirit of entrepreneurship
in Africa.
Social and human capital
Through its work on agroenterprise development, CIAT is helping
the rural poor design reliable, environmentally friendly sources
of income. But we are also banking on the idea that participatory
methods bring other benefits—to individuals and the community
as a whole. Social scientists refer to these spinoffs, respectively,
as “human” and “social capital”.
The notion of human capital is best captured by Saturday
Mercy: “We women participate in the work just as the
men do. Although I was a little shy at first, I’m now
supremely confident in my ability to accurately document the
work of our group.”
The related notion of social capital is evident in the work
of Muguli’s farmer committees. There is a strong and
growing sense of community spirit, cooperation, and trust.
Jeffrey Habarwasha sums it all up: “We know that development
and income generation are processes that don’t happen
overnight. Despite the hardships and risks, we’re all
ready to forge ahead and make a go of it.”
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