Research
and
Development Highlights Participatory
monitoring
and evaluation of participatory
research in southwestern Colombia. |  |
Bouncing
back after tragedy: The Cassava Biotechnology Network The past year has
been a busy and productive one for the Cassava Biotechnology Network (CBN), which
supported 11 new projects under its small-grants scheme, approved seven fellowships
for Master’s students, and gave guidance to pilot projects in Colombia,
Brazil, Cuba, and Ecuador. CBN’s grand finale for 2003-2004 was a week-long
event, its Sixth International Scientific Meeting, held at CIAT headquarters in
March. CIAT staff and collaborators know that heavy workloads and hectic
schedules like these are nothing out of the ordinary. What makes CBN’s recent
accomplishments noteworthy is that they emerged from what was, throughout 2002,
a gaping professional vacuum and period of mourning by CIAT employees and cassava
specialists around the world. In January 2002, two CIAT staff—CBN coordinator
Chusa Ginés and CBN social scientist Verónica Mera—lost their
lives when the plane they were on, flying in foggy weather, crashed into the Cumbal
volcano. The two women had been en route from their base in Quito, Ecuador, to
meetings at CIAT headquarters. After the tragedy Canada’s International
Development Research Centre (IDRC) announced it would provide US$450,000 over
5 years to launch the Ginés-Mera Memorial Fellowship Fund for Postgraduate
Studies in Biodiversity. The first round of fellowships was approved in 2003.
The funds support seven students, carrying out their research projects in Colombia
and Peru. IDRC, along with The Netherlands’ Directorate General for
International Cooperation (DGIS), also supported CBN operations in 2001 and 2002.
DGIS funding continues through 2004. In February 2003, Brazilian plant physiologist
Alfredo Alves was appointed CBN coordinator. And in May, Elizabeth Caicedo, from
Colombia, was recruited to the position of social scientist. With these key positions
filled, CBN is once again able to fulfill its mission: mobilizing biotechnology
to enhance cassava’s contribution to food security and economic development
in poor areas of Latin America and the Caribbean. Grown mainly by small
farmers, cassava is vital to the food security and livelihoods of about 500 million
people across the tropics. However, compared with other major food crops like
rice, wheat, and potatoes, this versatile industrial and food crop has received
remarkably scant scientific attention since the advent of modern biotechnology
some 25 years ago. As research by CIAT and CBN members has shown, biotechnology
offers many useful tools for cassava improvement. Applications range from farmer-operated
tissue culture laboratories for producing healthy planting material, through the
use of molecular markers for selecting superior plants in breeding programs, to
genetic transformation for higher vitamin A content.
For more information,
including documents from the Sixth International Meeting, visit CBN’s Web
site: www.ciat.cgiar.org/biotechnology/cbn/index.htm Industrial
drying opens up a lucrative market for cassavaNew technology for high-volume
drying of cassava roots and leaves is poised to slash Latin America’s heavy
reliance on imported animal feed, especially maize. In Colombia the rapidly expanding
poultry industry, 90 percent of whose raw materials for feed still come from foreign
sources, has taken serious note of this low-cost innovation and begun to invest. The
drying system was designed and tested by the Latin American and Caribbean Consortium
to Support Cassava Research and Development (CLAYUCA) and CIAT. Colombia, whose
agriculture ministry provided project funding, is the test ground. Three
factories—which clean, peel, chip, and then dry cassava with hot-air blowers,
all in one operation—went into service in 2003. As of March 2004, another
eight were under construction. Throughput capacity varies between half a ton and
5 tons of fresh cassava roots per hour. Significantly, one-quarter of the
US$1.6 million invested so far in the new technology comes from Colombian farmers.
The rest is from a mix of government and commercial sources, including members
of the National Poultry Federation of Colombia (FENAVI), which recently joined
CLAYUCA. Strong interest among farmers is to be expected, since the new
technology not only expands their market but also brings the animal feed industry
right to their doorstep, creating rural jobs in the process. Because freshly harvested
cassava is highly perishable, the drying factories must be located close to their
source of raw material if they are to be competitive. The artificial drying plants
also allow cassava to be grown at different times of the year, giving farmers
a welcome measure of flexibility in their cropping systems. In many regions farmers
are normally restricted to growing cassava at certain times, because they have
to ensure that harvest coincides with the dry period. “We brought
the poultry industry to the discussion table,” says CLAYUCA executive director
Bernardo Ospina. “Cassava, and therefore CLAYUCA, were really good bets
for the poultry producers.” Hernán Ceballos, manager of CIAT’s
Cassava Improvement Project, adds that enthusiastic private-sector participation
has so far helped whittle down construction costs of the CIAT artificial drying
plants to about one-fifth of the price in 2000. At the same time, high-yielding
cassava varieties and good cultural practices have allowed yields of fresh roots
to rise well above the threshold of 20 tons per hectare for product competitiveness. Tropical
farmers, especially grain producers, are being hit hard by new trade regimes.
To survive the tidal wave of globalization, say Ospina and Ceballos, they must
adapt quickly by exploiting comparative advantages and new markets. Cassava, a
tropical crop, is an obvious entry point, and the livestock industry represents
a ready-made and largely untapped market for it. “With the help of
this drying plant, we think it’s possible to eliminate at least 500,000
tons of maize feed imports per year in Colombia alone,” says Ospina. This
would represent an annual foreign currency saving of US$50 million. High-tannin
legumes help suppress methane from livestockRecent CIAT studies show that
including high-tannin legumes in dietary supplements for livestock can help strike
a balance between better nutrient-use efficiency in animals and lower emissions
of methane. Cattle, sheep, and other ruminants, along with rice paddies, are major
agricultural sources of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. In the tropics
livestock are often fed low-quality forage consisting mostly of grass, resulting
in low productivity. Much research has gone into helping farmers improve animal
nutrition through the addition of protein-rich legumes, such as Cratylia argentea,
a tropical shrub. But the leaves of low-tannin legumes, while improving key aspects
of ruminant digestion (nutrient degradation and nitrogen turnover), also dramatically
increase methane production. CIAT’s Multipurpose Tropical Grasses
and Legumes Project, in collaboration with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Zurich (ETH) and funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC),
examined two legumes, Calliandra calothyrsus and Flemingia macrophylla. While
these plants have similar chemical composition and high tannin content,
F.
macrophylla was found to be the more nutritious of the two when it was combined
with the low-tannin legume, Cratylia, as the feed supplement. But it wasn’t
nearly as good as C. calothyrsus at suppressing methane production. In related
experiments the researchers looked at the nutritional effects of adding sugarcane
molasses to different livestock diets. (Experiments were done in vitro, that is,
in an artificial fermenter that simulates digestion, rather than with actual livestock.)
When molasses was added to the grass-only diet and to the grass-plus-Cratylia
diet, there was no effect. Then came the surprise: Molasses dramatically boosted
nitrogen degradability for the diet composed of grass supplemented by C. calothyrsus.
This finding, the researchers note, points to the potential of molasses
for reducing the negative nutritional effects of high-tannin legumes, while allowing
their methane-suppressing trait to be exploited. The research complements earlier
CIAT work that clearly demonstrated the methane-suppressing properties of tropical
fruits rich in chemical compounds known as saponins. In the meantime, CIAT
scientists are continuing their efforts to balance livestock production and environmental
goals by identifying optimal mixes of high- and low-tannin legumes for use as
feed supplements. Weapons against whitefliesWhiteflies
are one of the most destructive groups of insect pests known to farmers. Most
species damage crops by feeding directly on leaves; some also transmit deadly
viral diseases to plants. The Tropical Whitefly IPM Project (TWFP), coordinated
by CIAT, is a three-phase global R&D campaign launched by the CGIAR’s
Systemwide Integrated Pest Management Programme to combat this grave threat to
rural livelihoods in the tropics.
During its second 3-year phase, the
project began to translate earlier results of basic research into IPM practices
and validate them under farmer conditions. In the Andean highlands, research
has concentrated on whiteflies as direct pests of crops, particularly dry and
snap beans. This is because at elevations higher than about 1,000 meters, the
most important disease-carrying whitefly species, Bemisia tabaci, is generally
absent. The main pest is a direct feeder, Trialeurodes vaporariorum, certain populations
of which are showing pesticide resistance. The recommended IPM strategy
has two key components. The first is to get farmers to abandon their practice
of frequent spraying of plants with broad-spectrum pesticides. Instead, they are
advised to use more target-specific chemicals, at smaller doses and only under
certain conditions and at specified times. Foliar spraying, for example, is done
only when an “action threshold” is reached, that is, when the whitefly
population reaches a known level at which economic damage occurs. Researchers
are also working with farmers to test the effectiveness of the whitefly’s
natural enemies as biological control agents. Two of the more promising candidates
are a parasitic wasp, Amitus fuscipennis, and a fungus, Verticillium lecanii.
However, the action threshold approach does not work when the target whiteflies
are vectors of plant viruses. In this case, susceptible crops have to be protected
from the moment plants emerge from the soil. This is because it takes just a few
virus-bearing whiteflies to start a devastating epidemic. Currently, most
farmers use pesticide “cocktails” regularly, sometimes daily, to control
viral diseases transmitted by whiteflies. TWFP promotes the use of physical barriers—antiwhitefly
screens known as “microtunnels”—to protect vegetable crops from
whitefly-borne viruses during the first month of their highly susceptible vegetative
period. This strategy also eliminates the need for regular pesticide applications—a
practice that contaminates the environment and which may account for as much as
60 percent of crop production costs. Microtunnels are being rapidly adopted
by vegetable growers in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and southern Mexico
as a way to boost income from their small farms. TWFP also continues to distribute
cassava and common bean germplasm resistant to whitefly-transmitted viruses in
Africa and Latin America, respectively, to help improve food security. TWFP
funding has come mainly from the UK’s Department for International Development
(DFID). Other donor agencies are Danish International Development Assistance (Danida),
New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA),
and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). The
Project’s 2004 brochure contains more details of recent IPM advances around
the world. It can be downloaded from www.tropicalwhiteflyipmproject.cgiar.org Trade
fairly in SpanishA new CIAT information service links Latin American farmers
and rural development groups with organizations around the world that buy and
sell “Fair Trade” products in industrialized countries or provide
services to developing country entrepreneurs. The Spanish language Information
Service on Fair Trade was launched in June 2004 by CIAT’s Rural Agroenterprise
Development Project as a subsite of the main CIAT Web site. Its centerpiece is
an annotated directory of about
150 organizations whose corporate profiles
can be downloaded in PDF format. These organizations include Southern exporters,
Northern importers, wholesalers and retailers, organic farming groups, advocates
of Fair Trade practices (including certification agencies), and suppliers of credit
and other business support services. Fair Trade is both an international
movement for social progress and an alternative system of South-North commerce.
The body that sets its international standards is Fairtrade Labelling Organizations
(FLO) International, based in Germany. Under those standards some 800,000 producers,
workers, and their dependants in more than 45 countries benefit from the value
added by labelled Fair Trade products. In exchange for a better price, producers
guarantee an agreed level of product quality and the use of environmentally sustainable
and socially responsible production methods. On hearing the term Fair Trade,
many consumers still glance automatically at their mug of coffee, tea, or cocoa
or perhaps their sugar bowl. But the range of products available is now much wider
and includes bananas, flowers, juices, honey, and wine. Footballs are the first
manufactured item to become available as Fair Trade goods. Other products under
consideration are avocados, dried fruit and nuts, spices, and a traditional Andean
grain, quinoa. Carlos Ostertag, a marketing specialist with CIAT’s
Rural Agroenterprise Development Project, says the volume of Fair Trade is still
only a tiny fraction of total international agricultural trade and still much
smaller than trade in organic farm produce, which has now gone mainstream. But
he also points out that the Fair Trade system represents a rapidly growing market
that could open up excellent opportunities for Latin Americans—not just
the largest beneficiaries to date, coffee growers, but also the region’s
small-scale growers of fruit and other tropical specialties. As an example of
what can be achieved, U.S. sales of Fair Trade coffee rose nearly 56 percent between
2000 and 2001, from around 2,000 tons to just over 3,000. CIAT’s
Spanish language Information Service on Fair Trade was designed with the help
of a survey of 40 potential user organizations in the Andean region. Besides profiling
relevant organizations, the Service provides background documents on organic farming
and Fair Trade certification, a glossary, and links to other CIAT tools for agroenterprise
development. For more information, visit www.ciat.cgiar.org/agroempresas/sistema_cj/inicio.htm
Empowering rural people through participatory monitoring
and evaluation
For the past 2 years, CIAT has been using participatory
monitoring and evaluation (PME) to strengthen community involvement in rural innovation.
The aim is to empower grass roots client groups by enhancing their role in research
and development decision making. Under the PME system promoted by CIAT’s
Participatory Research Approaches Project, providers of R&D services work
with local beneficiaries to measure the short-, medium-, and long-term results
of activities using agreed-on yardsticks (indicators). These results are then
compared with the original objectives as a measure of progress. As a formal feedback
loop, PME systems help keep research and other activities on track and allow both
service providers and clients to learn lessons, thereby increasing the chances
of success for future projects. CIAT’s introduction and testing of
PME systems has focused on 22 local agricultural research committees (or CIALs,
as they are known in Spanish) in Colombia’s Cauca Department. A CIAL usually
consists of 6 to 12 farmers, elected by their peers to conduct research on behalf
of the whole community. In 2003, Center staff also began testing PME at a higher
organizational level, namely an umbrella organization representing 39 CIALs, the
Corporation for the Promotion of CIALs (CORFOCIAL). Institutionalizing PME
has proven quite challenging. CIAT researchers have found that communication and
collaboration between CIAL members and the community are often poor; record keeping
of research outputs and impacts is weak; and PME is often viewed as extra work
with no immediate payoff. Social unrest and the sheer workload of farmers, particularly
during planting season and harvest, also interfere with the introduction of PME. In
response to these obstacles, CIAT has worked with CORFOCIAL to better coordinate
PME tasks and to strengthen the team of facilitators that provide technical support
to the CIALs. The researchers have found that, despite the problems, it is possible
to establish PME in just about any CIAL, regardless of the group’s level
of maturity. During 2003, CIAT researchers also began promoting PME among
R&D service providers in Bolivia through a project funded by the UK’s
Department for International Development (DFID). This collaboration is timely,
since the government recently reorganized its national system for delivering R&D
services to make it more responsive to rural demands. Under the new arrangement,
called the Bolivian System for Agricultural and Livestock Technology (SIBTA),
four foundations serve as brokers between rural communities and various providers
of research and other services. CIAT is currently working with two of the foundations
to institutionalize PME and other aspects of participatory research. In a series
of training workshops, which began in 2003, the service providers formulate action
plans for the introduction of PME in their community projects. CIAT hopes this
on-going effort in Bolivia will help rural groups articulate their needs better
and become more discriminating in their choice of services and technologies. Distance
learning for sustainable rural developmentTools don’t make rural
development decisions. People do. Although CIAT’s indicators of rural sustainability
can help government ministers and advisers to formulate good policies, there is
a gap between access to such tools and their application. The necessary skills
for producing and using indicators are generally lacking, not only among policy
makers but also among the technical staff who support them. In November
2002, CIAT and two institutional partners organized a 4-day tele-course on sustainability
indicators. The course was transmitted from Washington, D.C., to participating
organizations throughout Central America. Such distance learning is proving an
effective way to bridge the gap between theory and practice, by building human
capacity within key ministries and other policy-oriented bodies in Central America. Each
day the course provided 2 hours of video conferencing and 2 hours of applied exercises.
In this instance the training targeted mostly technical staff—in ministries
of the environment, agriculture, and planning, in census bureaus, in regional
and international organizations, and in NGOs and universities. The course
sponsors—CIAT, the World Bank Institute, and the World Bank—chose
distance learning as the delivery vehicle because it is easy to replicate and
costs less than face-to-face meetings. However, a face-to-face course was later
organized by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
and the World Bank Institute to fine-tune the six-module CD-ROM and other materials
for future training and capacity building. The course took place in Santiago,
Chile, in early June 2003.
The first rural development and sustainability
indicators designed by CIAT were released on
CD-ROM in late 1998 under the
title Atlas of Environmental and Sustainability Indicators for Latin America and
the Caribbean. Building on that joint effort with the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP), CIAT then worked with UNEP, the World Bank, and more than 50
regional and national partner institutions to design a set of sustainability indicators
specific to Central America. This is a subregion of significant environmental
degradation, closely linked to poverty. Published in a bilingual Spanish/English
format, Developing Indicators: Experience from Central America was the basis for
the recent distance learning course. For more information, visit www.ciat.cgiar.org/indicators/toolkit.htm Mapping
Ecuador’s vulnerability to El NiñoGovernments can’t
prevent calamities like earthquakes, floods, and droughts. But if they can determine
which citizens are most vulnerable, they can better target emergency services
and prepare people for future threats. With this in mind, researchers within CIAT’s
Land Use Project are mapping the vulnerability of Ecuador’s population to
El Niño.
Over the past two decades, Ecuador has twice suffered
major losses of human life, property damage, and economic hardship due to severe
flooding and landslides following heavy rains. The El Niño-related disaster
of 1997-98 killed at least 286 people and left 30,000 homeless. Lost farm production
and the destruction of infrastructure such as bridges and roads accounted for
most of the economic loss. Three-quarters of Ecuador’s 12 million
people currently live in poverty, and nearly one-fifth are undernourished. Combined
with lack of awareness about how to protect themselves, this poverty and food
insecurity make many Ecuadorians, particularly those in isolated rural areas,
extremely vulnerable to the negative effects of future
El Niños. The
mapping exercise is part of a larger international project on poverty and food
insecurity, funded by Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Relations and carried
out jointly by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), CIAT and UNEP/GRID-Arendal
(an environmental information center in Norway, linked to the UN Environment Programme).
CIAT coordinates the seven country case studies now being carried out by CGIAR
centers. CIAT researchers hope to shed light on the nature of vulnerability
by looking at factors such as employment, housing, education, land ownership,
and family links. Their aim is to see which combinations of these “assets”
contribute to a household’s ability to minimize damage or recover quickly
from disaster, and which assets may themselves be vulnerable. The research team
surveyed 218 households in about 20 communities that form a rural-to-urban continuum
in the coastal area. “We now have an idea of who didn’t have
enough food to eat in the wake of the last El Niño and why,” says
Andy Farrow, the CIAT specialist in geographic information systems (GIS) who leads
the 3-year study. “Our results will help government officials and agencies
plan preventive measures.”
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