Improved bean varieties give
Kenyan farmers more food and cash
Farmers in western Kenya have enthusiastically
adopted several new varieties of beans that resist root rots
and whose yield is more than double that of the commonly grown
local varieties susceptible to these diseases. A recent impact
study shows one of the new bush beans, called KK 15, was being
grown by 80 percent of farmers surveyed in one district and
by 42 percent in another. Two other varieties had almost identical
adoption rates in both districts, roughly
35 percent and 70 percent. The rate of adoption was highest
in Vihiga District, which is one of Africa’s most densely
populated regions, with 850 persons per square kilometer.
Next to maize, beans are Kenya’s most important food
crop. They are also a major source of family income. But during
the 1990s root rots devastated crops in western districts,
forcing some farmers out of bean production altogether. Continuous
cropping without proper nutrient replacement had slowly robbed
the soil of its fertility, creating an ideal environment for
proliferation of the Pythium fungi that cause root rots.
In response to the root rot crisis, CIAT and the Kenya Agricultural
Research Institute (KARI) worked with the extension service
of the Ministry of Agriculture to introduce 27 improved bean
varieties. In a complementary participatory research project,
local farmers selected 11 of those varieties as the best,
and they also experimented with soil management methods to
improve control of root rots. Seed of the chosen germplasm
was multiplied and distributed in a number of communities
via women’s groups, government extensionists, and an
NGO.
The impact study, conducted jointly by CIAT and KARI, provides
a snapshot of the situation in 233 households in
20 villages just after the June 2001 harvest. It was designed
to determine the fate of the bean varieties and whether they
had benefitted farmers. About two-thirds of survey participants
were individual women. The preponderance of women respondents
reflects their central role in Kenyan bean production.
Adopting farmers strongly favored three of the five bush
bean varieties examined in the impact study. They attributed
their preferences to, among other traits, early maturity,
high yield, storability, good taste, short cooking time, resistance
to root rots, and good marketability. Six of the farmer selections
covered by the survey were climbing beans. These resist root
rots and yield better than even the best of the improved bush
bean varieties. Even so, adoption rates in both surveyed districts
were low.
In their report the impact study team, led by CIAT social
scientist Soniia David and KARI economist Martin Odendo, notes
that climbing beans require higher soil fertility, as well
as poles and extra labor to stake up the plants. Some farmers
planted the beans in gardens close to their houses, where
it was easy to use kitchen wastes as compost to boost soil
fertility. “While the survey results do not allow for
conclusive observations about the potential of climbing beans
for motivating farmers to invest in soil fertility,”
write the authors, “they suggest an opportunity for promoting
the technology to fit into specific niches.”
The introduction of new high-yielding varieties has sometimes
been blamed for dwindling crop genetic diversity in farmers’
fields. The logic here is that the arrival of better germplasm,
especially during a food crisis (like that triggered by root
rots in Kenya), prompts farmers to abandon traditional varieties
as no longer useful or productive. The CIAT-KARI survey found
just the opposite. The vast majority of farmers who had planted
new varieties in 2000 also grew one or more local varieties.
Some reported doing so simply as an experiment to monitor
the extent to which they could still grow and harvest beans
of those root rot-susceptible varieties. The adoption of the
new germplasm thus resulted in a net increase in varietal
diversity, not a drop.
Another important finding was that adoption of the new bush
bean varieties improved household food security. Nearly all
farmers who had planted the new varieties reported having
more food to eat. In addition, about one-third of respondents
reported having more beans all year round—a major benefit
given the perennial problem of the between-harvest hungry
season.
About two-thirds of the adopting farmers were able o sell
some of their harvest of the new bean varieties. Two bush
varieties in particular—KK 22 and KK8—fetched good
prices because of their preferred seed size and popular reddish
color. The resulting earnings on the region’s quite small
farms were, on average, the equivalent of US$15 to
$16 per farmer.
Farmers reported using this cash to pay for immediate household
and health needs, such as food, fuel, soap, and medicine,
as well as for longer term investments, mostly school fees,
books, clothing, livestock, seed, and fertilizer. Having more
money to buy food and being better able to invest in children’s
education were among the most important household-level benefits
of these new bean varieties.
New forages boost incomes in Vietnam
An 8-year participatory research project in rural Vietnam
has stimulated widespread adoption of improved forages, in
turn leading to significantly higher rural family incomes.
Equally important, there are major time and labor savings,
especially for women and children, who traditionally spend
many hours each day feeding and herding livestock.
These are among the key findings of a recent evaluation of
CIAT’s Forages for Smallholders Project (FSP). The impact
study looked at social and economic benefits in two of the
six Asian countries that participated in the forages research.
The Philippines was the other country covered by the study.
Operating from 1995 to 2002, FSP was initially funded by
the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID)
and later by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Early on, researchers
screened 500 samples of forage grasses and legumes for superior
performance and suitability for cultivation in Southeast Asia’s
small-scale livestock systems. They then worked with thousands
of farmers across the region to test a selection of those
materials on-farm.
In Vietnam two provinces participated in FSP: Daklak in the
central part of the country and Tuyen Quang in the north.
Two partner organizations, the National Institute of Animal
Husbandry and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development,
implemented the project with CIAT’s assistance. As of
June 2002, when the impact study was conducted, 1,700 Vietnamese
farmers were involved in FSP and actively cultivating improved
forages.
The Vietnamese component of the impact study focused on Tuyen
Quang. In that province farmers in six communes began experimenting
with
12 improved forages in 1997, under the Vietnam Sweden Mountain
Rural Development Programme. Among the most popular forages
adopted were Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum), Guinea grass
(Panicum maximum), and two Brachiaria grass species (decumbens
and ruziziensis).
A decade ago local farmers in the study area were allowed
to graze their animals on communal lands. But these areas
were divided up and distributed by the government to individual
farmers in 1992. This cut off many livestock producers from
a free source of forage. Combined with seasonal labor shortages,
the land-tenure change forced many villagers to sell their
cattle and buffalo, traditional sources of traction, transport,
food, and income.
Not long after that, CIAT’s FSP project began providing
practical technologies for raising superior forage crops and
feeding animals on-farm, thus reducing the need to herd and
graze livestock over large areas. Participating farmers have
since set up forage banks for cut-and-carry feeding and are
intercropping the new forages in tea plantations. The new
technologies are sufficiently flexible and varied to meet
the nutritional needs of diverse livestock: cattle, buffalo,
pigs, poultry, small ruminants, and even pond-raised fish,
a critical component of the local livestock system. The introduced
forage grasses have also been planted in rows across erosion-prone
farm slopes, along fishpond embankments as stabilizers, and
as cover crops under fruit trees.
“The close involvement of farmers in every step of the
project resulted in widespread spontaneous adoption of the
new forages,” write the study authors. And, as the farmers
tell it, there were good reasons for participating. Among
the concrete benefits reported by them are higher yields compared
with local forage grasses, better control of soil erosion,
and less time spent feeding animals. They also said their
fish, cattle, and buffalo were healthier and grew faster,
that animals sold for higher prices, and that more manure
was available to build soil fertility and improve food crop
production.
The impact study team found that net income per household
from raising ruminants, such as cattle and buffalo, rose from
US$144 to $179 per year for farmers who had adopted improved
forages 2 to 4 years earlier. As for fish production from
ponds, income went from $99 to $125. These are noteworthy
gains, given that most farmers raise both fish and ruminants.
From the point of view of labor efficiency, the gains were
actually much higher. Net income per day from labor spent
in these two enterprises roughly tripled, with a slight advantage
for fish farming.
Cultivating new forages also yielded major labor savings,
which translated into both social and economic benefits. On
the social side, children had more time for recreation, rest,
and studies because of the reduced labor burden of herding
and feeding animals. On the economic side, household members,
especially women, were able to spend more time earning money
from other productive farm activities. Taking these financial
spinoffs into account, the impact study team estimated the
total income boost related to adoption of CIAT forage technologies
at $152 per year, representing a 29 percent increase in total
household income.
Social capital yields high economic
returns to agroenterprises
“Firms should pay attention to social capital,”
says CIAT economist Nancy Johnson, “and so should governments,
NGOs, and other institutions interested in promoting rural
development through agroenterprises.” This is the conclusion
of a recent CIAT study on the nature and role of social capital
and its potential impact on rural agroenterprises. The study
was based on in-depth interviews with managers or owners of
50 small- and medium-sized firms in five regions of Colombia,
as well as on econometric analysis.
Paying attention to social capital means recognizing the
importance of building strong relationships within the community
along their supply chains. Broad networks of business contacts
allow firms to gather intelligence continuously and cheaply.
Strong, trust-based relationships reduce transaction costs,
for example, by avoiding the time and expense of entering
into legally binding contracts, or by eliminating complex
monitoring and control procedures. Sometimes small firms need
to cooperate to compete, by making joint purchases of inputs
to get better prices or by working together to fill large
orders.
“For agroenterprises, being competitive isn’t just
about producing at the lowest cost,” says Mark Lundy,
an agroenterprise specialist at CIAT and coleader of the study.
“It’s about responding rapidly to the changing demands
of the marketplace. Firms that are able to spot opportunities,
or threats, and respond quickly—without compromising
on quality—have a real advantage.”
The numbers bear this out. According to the study, the quantity
and strength of a firm’s relationships contribute “positively
and significantly” to its economic performance, as measured
by revenue per employee. Furthermore, additional investment
in these relationships—or “social capital”—yields
higher returns than a similar investment in either labor or
machinery.
Paying attention to social capital also means looking at
the relationships within a firm, especially those among its
owners. “We often treat firms as if they were individual
decision-makers, but in fact a firm is an organization made
up of people who may have different goals and different ideas
about what’s best for the firm,” says Johnson.
According to CIAT lawyer and economist Carolina González,
the law implicitly recognizes that different types of personal
relationships among owners imply different legal requirements.
In the study, the authors develop a typology that builds on
legal distinctions between the levels of trust between partners,
and on their objectives in establishing the firm.
High-trust organizational structures, such as partnerships,
generally have lower administrative costs, but partners share
unlimited liability and therefore must know and trust each
other. Low-trust structures, such as corporations, make up
for the lack of strong personal ties among investors with
higher levels of costly external regulation. Associative structures
like cooperatives are formed to provide a collective service
to their members, not to earn return on capital invested.
Therefore, the ability of the members to work together is
crucial to their success.
The significance of these differences is that many firms
are encouraged to adopt formal legal structures, often as
a condition of participation in support programs. Frequently,
these decisions are made on the basis of legal costs alone
or on perceptions about which structures are most equitable
or socially beneficial. The study shows that no one structure
is best, either economically or socially. What is important
is that the structure suit the firm, its goals, and the existing
level of social capital among the participants.
The study was funded in part by the Systemwide Program on
Collective Action and Property Rights (CAPRi) of the Consultative
Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Researchers
from two Colombian organizations, the Center for Crop and
Livestock Research (CEGA) and Corporation Colombia International
(CCI), contributed to the study design, data collection, and
analysis.
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